School Officials Discuss Lackluster CPS Climate Survey Results at Town Hall

Metrics of Cambridge Public Schools’ environment fell below nationwide medians for the 2023-2024 school year, according to survey results first shared with families in late February. CPS Superintendent Victoria L. Greer and other district administrators held a town hall meeting with parents and students Monday to discuss the results.

The town hall comes one day prior to a widely anticipated School Committee meeting where committee members and parents are expected to grill Greer during her midpoint evaluation.

The surveys, which collected responses from parents, students, and staff from Nov. 27 to Dec. 22, were administered by Panorama Education, a survey company that partners with 2,000 school districts across all fifty states.

The last climate survey for the district was conducted in 2019.

Staff Climate Survey

The in-school staff climate survey found that CPS staff’s perceptions of wellbeing and perceptions of feedback and coaching were below the 20th percentile nationally.

During a town hall meeting on Monday, a “glow” and a “grow” statistic was presented for each category, highlighting the most favorable and least favorable response. Yet, when it came to the coaching and feedback section, CPS Director of Research Jennifer Amigone said that “no glow could be identified.”

“Everything was on the less favorable end,” Amigone said.

According to the survey, perceptions among staff of belonging and perceptions of school climate scored in the 20th-39th percentile nationally.

“A significant number of educators and staff are exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed, and frustrated,” Amigone said.

Family Climate Survey

The family climate survey found that families’ perceptions of barriers to engagement and perceptions of school fit both placed in the 20th-39th percentile nationally, while families’ perceptions of school climate placed CPS in the 40th to 59th percentile nationally.

However, in a Feb. 28 email to parents and on the CPS website, CPS initially reported that families’ perceptions of school climate “places CPS in the 70th percentile nationally,” which caused confusion amongst some parents.

At the town hall meeting, Amigone said that CPS is included in the “urban consortium” of school districts.

“To make an apples-to-apples comparison, we can make an adjustment in the platform,” Amigone said. “That moves us into the 70th percentile when we do so.”

Other school districts in the “urban consortium” include New York City and Boston, Brianne McCarthy, a Panorama Education account director, said at the meeting.

The family survey received a 68 percent response rate, 30 percentage points higher than the 2019 survey and 18 percentage points higher than Greer’s goal response rate.

“We really went far above, and I just want to thank all the families and caregivers in the room for participating,” Amigone said.

Student Climate Survey

Separate surveys were administered to students in grades 3-5 and students in grades 6-12, both covering categories of school climate, belonging, valuing of schools, and school rigorous expectations.

Students with individualized education programs responded least favorably across all categories, while multilingual learners responded most favorably. Greer said that by the end of the week, the district will make aggregated data by school publicly available.

Greer said individual schools are expected to respond to their data through school improvement plans.

“The district will be similar. As we are creating our SMART district action plans, you will see more responses to this data and results in our action planning,” she said.

On Monday, the district opened a “Communications and Content Survey,” to address concerns about barriers to engagement among parents. According to the CPS website, the survey will collect parents’ feedback on the efficacy of the district’s website and their use of ParentSquare, an app that CPS implemented in 2022 to centralize district communications with families.

This feedback survey will also be administered by Panorama and will close April 5.

According to the town hall meeting, in the future, Cambridge Public Schools climate surveys will be administered annually.

—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Emily T. Schwartz can be reached at emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @EmilySchwartz37.