Methuen presents VOCAL school-climate results; district to launch parent survey and student action teams

Dr. Golovski, a district presenter, told the Methuen School Committee on Jan. 27 that students who took the VOCAL school-climate survey in spring 2024 showed results that are “near, above, or on par with the state in most of these areas.” The presentation said 93% of eligible students completed the voluntary survey, compared with a 73% state participation rate.

The VOCAL instrument collects student perceptions on three dimensions — engagement, safety and environment — for grades 4, 5, 8 and 10 and provides both an overall climate index and separate sub-scores for items such as participation, bullying and instructional environment. Dr. Golovski said the district’s grade 10 cohort (Methuen High School) met or exceeded the state score on 16 of 17 engagement items and exceeded state scores on many indicators of instructional environment.

Committee members pressed for more detail on areas of weakness. Member Aylia said she wanted the committee to “see the ones where we failed miserably” so the district can target improvements; she asked for raw bullying-item data by school and grade. Member Maxwell questioned whether students felt free to answer honestly given classroom dynamics and whether students understood the optional nature of the survey; Dr. Golovski responded that the survey instructions state participation is voluntary and that participation included special-education and English-learner students.

District staff described next steps that use the VOCAL findings. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) teams will be formed in each upper school and at the high school; the district said each team will be 10 to 12 students chosen by a Google form application and advised by adult partners. The teams will meet at a district retreat facilitated by Up for Learning and plan to present professional development sessions run by students for teachers in the fall. Staff also said a parent/guardian climate survey adapted from Panorama (and designed using items based on work at Harvard) will be distributed in multiple languages and kept open for at least a couple of weeks; results will be presented at the next workshop.

Multiple committee members requested more raw data and the state-submitted report. Member Willette asked for the student-level report and was told the survey data are available in the secure state portal and that staff could download and distribute the report to committee members. Member Willett and others emphasized the committee’s interest in seeing the underlying item-level and school-by-school breakdowns — particularly bullying and cyberbullying items in lower grades — before deciding follow-up actions.

The presentation and discussion closed with staff saying they will provide additional disaggregated data (including the state report), the parent-survey questions and a timeline for the YPAR work and the parent-survey launch.