This document discusses how to evaluate a school's climate and diversity using surveys. It provides information on: - Scales developed by Welcoming Schools to measure school climate, gender roles, cognitive maturity, comfort levels, and teaching practices. - Administering pre and post surveys to assess changes in attitudes over the school year and analyzing results using averages, standard deviations, and statistical tests. - Customizing surveys by removing questions, adding new ones, or editing existing ones. - Interpreting survey results and using a grading scale (A-F) to understand changes in a school's diversity climate over time.

1. Welcoming Schools’ Evaluation Toolbox

2. Evaluate Our School’s Climate How could we do our own evaluation of our school? Do we have to ask the whole LONG survey? How could we see if there was any real change in attitudes over the school year? What if we want to add some different questions? What is the best way to get the word out on our school as a Welcoming School? 2 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

4. Dr. Laura Szalacha and Kim Westheimer, director of HRC’s Welcoming Schools project, developed and tested pre and post surveys to assess 5 differing dimensions of a school’s diversity climate Welcoming Schools Introduction Welcoming Schools Assessment 4 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

5. Valid and Reliable Scales The Welcoming Schools’ pilot testing of the curriculum guide included the development of reliable and valid measures. These included five measures: School Climate 10 questions Gender roles and expression 5 questions Children’s Cognitive Maturity 6 questions Personal Comfort Level 5 questions Teaching Practices 4 questions 5 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

6. For each scale, you could simply average the responses. Enter the responses into an online tool or into a statistics software package to determine the average and standard deviation (SD - how much variation there is in the responses). For example, if the mean was 3.6 and the SD was .2, 95% of the responses would have been between 3.2 and 4.0. Using Scales 6 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

7. In schools, we all have a metric that is almost intuitively understood… A B C D F 5 4 3 2 1 These can be used with the various scales for ease of interpretation So, the mean of 3.6 could be understood as a B- *Hyperlinks to pre and post surveys Using Scales 7 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

8. Do we have to ask the whole LONG survey? No, if you think that a question or a scale doesn’t make sense for your community, you can choose not to use it / or them. How many questions? A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation 8

9. How to Add and Subtract Questions What if we want to add some different questions? You can add any number of additional questions, if you are not making them a part of an existing scale **Just remember not to make it too 9 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation L O N G!

10. Adding Questions to Scales If you want to add questions to be a part of one of these scales, you’ll need to assess reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) and validity (correlations). Editing Questions You could also edit questions to match your school. For instance, if your school does not have a library, you could alter a question to refer to the corridors or cafeteria, where ever large groups of students might be. 10 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

11. How to Conduct a Pre-Post Evaluation of your School How could we see if there was any real change in attitudes over the school year? 11 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

12. Can be as simple as comparing the average grade (A,B,C,D,F) from the pre-survey to the post-survey The basic statistical test in order to establish a “statistically significant difference”, is an independent t-test between means (pre and post) Could be as complex as examining change while controlling for biological sex, age, race/ethnicity, school role… *Hyperlinks to Szalacha, American Journal of Education Szalacha, In Press Any Real Change in Attitudes Across the School Year? 12 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

13. Pay attention to all of the comments that your colleagues have written in the survey – they contain important information for you Interpreting Questions 13 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

14. Evaluate Our School’s Climate What is the best way to get the word out on our school as a Welcoming School? 14 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

15. How could we do our own evaluation of our school? Do we have to ask the whole LONG survey? How could we see if there was any real change in attitudes across the school year? What if we want to add some different questions? What is the best way to get the word out on our school as a Welcoming School? Evaluating Our School’s Climate 15 A Project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

16. Contact us: http://www.welcomingschools.org