District staff on Sept. 17 told the Strategic Planning Committee that districtwide student climate survey results and hate-bias reporting data point to persistent gaps in students’ sense of belonging and to uneven reporting across some student groups. The presentation covered survey participation and timing, differences by race/ethnicity, a three-tier hate-bias reporting protocol the district now uses, and steps the district plans to take to increase reporting and respondent representation.

The committee heard from Keisha Addison, director of shared accountability, who said the district received “a little over 38,000 students” responses to the spring survey, a 44.2% response rate, and that the shortened instrument contained 11 student items and closed June 16. “This survey gives us powerful insights into student perceptions,” Addison said as she introduced disaggregated results for middle and high schools.

The data presentation highlighted that agreement (agree/strongly agree) on items about teachers’ respect for students, confidence that students can have open and honest conversations about race, and whether students from different races are treated fairly were substantially lower for Black or African American students than for many peers at both middle- and high-school levels. Committee member Rita Montoya pressed staff on the public slides’ use of “n responses” and the missing denominator, saying, “We always need to know what the n is, to provide the full picture that we’re looking at.” Addison said the district can provide the denominator (total enrolled students by level) later and noted the survey did not require answers to every item, so per-item respondent counts vary.

Janita Love, the district hate-bias coordinator, presented incident data and described a three-tier reporting and response protocol adopted in recent years. Love said the district recorded 253 hate-bias incidents in fiscal 2025, down from about 520 in fiscal 2024 — “a reduction of about 49% from 520 total incidents to 253 total incidents,” she said — and that 145 of the 253 incidents were coded as racial in motivation. Love described the tiering: Level red incidents (criminal elements such as vandalism or assault) trigger non-emergency police contact; Level orange incidents are determined to be hate related and are recorded as serious incidents with potential partner consultation; Level yellow incidents are hurtful or unwelcoming acts that, after fact-finding, are not judged to be motivated by bias and are handled with restorative responses.

Love said the tiered approach was intended to reduce uses of police in every case and to allow for responses “that lead with the lens of humanity and education.” She said the district’s internal incident database is reviewed regularly by equity and compliance staff and used to target training and culturally grounded prevention work.

Wootton High School principal Dr. Bostic described school-level climate steps he has led since arriving last winter. He told the committee that building relationships and creating student leadership opportunities have been central, and that student groups organized jointly (for example, a Multi Leader Student Association) helped rebuild “togetherness,” which students identified as missing. “Togetherness was the thing that they felt was missing,” Dr. Bostic said, describing parent coffees, student ambassador programs and targeted family outreach as part of the school’s response.

Committee members raised concerns about underreporting and data suppression that can hide small groups. Montoya and others asked how smaller racial or ethnic groups (for example, Indigenous students or students who identify with “two or more races”) are represented when public slides aggregate them into an “all other student groups” category. Addison and Love said school-level disaggregated data are available to principals and that the district follows a public-reporting threshold aligned with county rules (reported in the presentation as a 5% enrollment threshold) to avoid identifying individual students; they also said the district can provide additional disaggregations on request to the committee.

Several board members and staff discussed training and building trust in reporting. Staff said administrator training on hate-bias identification and response began last summer and has continued; one staff member said roughly 400 school administrators attended a half-day training that combined reporting procedures with practice on building trust and responding to students. The committee heard that the district intends to require training for school administrators and staff to calibrate how incidents are classified and responded to.

On survey administration and next steps, Addison told the committee the district will administer the student climate survey twice this school year — after the first nine weeks and again after the third nine weeks — to allow principals to see interim results and act before year-end. Staff also described work to raise participation, including weekly response-rate reporting to principals, placing a survey link in Canvas, allowing students to complete the survey outside school buildings when appropriate, and guidance for principals to create in-school time for completion. Addison said the district’s target for student response is roughly 80–90%.

Committee members asked about restorative practices and whether they are always appropriate. Staff said restorative approaches are voluntary and emphasized that options must be student-centered and that some students or families may prefer mediation or other supports rather than face-to-face restorative circles. Staff also said the district is planning affinity focus groups, wrap‑around follow-ups after incidents, and additional culturally specific outreach to increase reporting from underrepresented communities.

No formal policy votes were taken by the committee at this meeting. The committee did approve a procedural agenda change at the start (moving item 4 to item 3) after a motion to reorder the agenda, and the meeting was formally closed after a motion to adjourn; both motions were made and seconded on the record and the meeting concluded.

The committee asked staff to return with disaggregated denominators for the survey response rates, additional detail on training content and schedules, and plans for targeted outreach and focus groups for groups that appear underrepresented in reporting. The district also said it will continue to refine the incident database and reporting tools so that trends by cluster and student group can better inform school- and district-level interventions.