When it comes to improving school climate, principals need to have access to meaningful, on-going data about how students experience school life.
A Tale of two principals
Principal 1 utilizes data from the prior year’s annual school climate survey to help identify school needs, set goals, and track progress toward school improvement. The “snapshot” view of his school’s climate and outdated data to drive decision making for the rest of the year. He will have to wait a full year (until the next survey) to identify changes in students’ feelings about their current teachers, peers, and school life.
Principal 2 uses a formative assessment tool for school climate to take measurements on how her students feel about school life every month. She takes advantage of timely reads of school climate to drive improvement efforts and implement pragmatic intervention strategies tailored to her school’s current needs. Her team has access to dynamic, real-time data to inform IEP meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and can adjust strategies to secure success.
This is a short story. Principal 2 can identify key issues at her school in need of reform early, before problems escalate, and track progress over the course of the school year. Principal 2 takes advantage of innovative technology to help support her team’s efforts to make sure students feel safe, supported, connected, and are engaged in learning.
We are seeing this scenario a lot lately. In fact, Brett Larsen, Principal at Boltz Middle School, told us when we first started working together that he “was looking for a more accurate way to assess school climate at his school” and “wanted the data to be longitudinal, not just how his students felt on that one day a year ago.”
Mr. Larsen agreed to pilot Bloomsights with his six grade team for six months and was impressed with the results that he expanded the program to run school-wide for the following school year. “Bloomsights allowed me to take measurements on how my students feel every month and see that data over time.” According to Mr. Larsen, Bloomsights provided his team with valuable insights that were used to “intervene with students who weren’t connected, address bullying, and improve teacher-student relationships.”
More and more, researchers and educators agree that surveys are a critical part of early intervention and school improvement strategies. But the survey tool that you implement must enable you to use best practices while embracing new strategies and technologies.
Bloomsights, an adaptive, responsive, and flexible school climate survey tool can deliver best practices with significant improvements over traditional methods.
From 30,000 ft to Ground Level
From indicators and trends across the school to the individual student, Bloomsights helps you know how your students are doing socially and emotionally. Our adaptive survey technology makes monitoring school climate over the course of the school year easy and automatic, real-time response analysis means less time screening for student needs and more time to intervene before problems escalate.
Students Feel Valued When Their Opinions Matter
Bloomsights makes it safe and easy for students to share how they feel about their experiences of school life. The assessment process itself is a learning experience for students. Through the process of answering carefully designed questions that encourages reflection, students learn social and emotional vocabulary that could help them to interact more effectively with others and to express how they are feeling. By giving students agency in school improvement efforts, classrooms transform into personalized learning environments making students feel more connected and cared for.
Teachers Need Tools Not Tasks
Bloomsights provides educators and school health professionals with a continuous stream of the data needed to answer the questions “So what?” and “Now what?” Finally, all staff members are able to recognize even the subtlest of indicators of school climate that may normally go unnoticed, but that could serve as a stimulus for early intervention—critical for issues related to feelings of isolation, loneliness, and student well-being as well as bullying. Moreover, they give teachers a way to think about and to clearly communicate survey results to students, school staff, and parents.
Change Your School’s Climate from Good to Awesome!
Bloomsights is an assessment tool aimed at gauging student well-being and improving school climate as a way to comprehensively encourage student social and emotional development. Simplify your SEL data to get clarity around your students’ needs and determine what interventions are necessary. Get meaningful and ongoing insights to plan and implement strategies that support improved student and school outcomes.
Click here to schedule a free demo and see how Bloomsights can support your efforts to promote student well-being and build a strong, inclusive, and happier school community.
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