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District survey: students report 70% overall favorability but belonging and engagement lag
Summary
Lynn Public Schools’ first full student climate survey captured roughly 10,000 responses (grades 3–12). Districtwide favorability averaged about 70%, with highest scores for diversity and inclusion and lowest for school belonging and engagement; the administration plans targeted follow-up and a spring re-survey.
A Lynn Public Schools official presented results from the district’s first full student climate survey in fall 2024, saying the district captured roughly 10,000 usable responses from students in grades 3 through 12 and offering initial interpretations and next steps.
Dr. Jennifer Shorter, who led the presentation, said the survey was offered in six languages and that “overall favorability is about 70%,” with the highest scores in diversity and inclusion and self-management. She told the committee that school belonging and classroom engagement were among the lowest-scoring areas districtwide — about 60% for belonging and 58% for excitement about classes on some items — and that students rated how often they discussed class ideas outside school at roughly 52%.
The survey, Shorter said, was administered electronically during the school day and loaded into a dashboard that individual schools can use to disaggregate responses by subgroup and grade. The district piloted earlier versions and expanded this fall to most schools; Shorter said roughly 13% of respondents chose a language other than English when taking the survey.
Committee members pressed for details on response rates and measurement. Shorter said the instrument mixes Likert scales (1–5 or 1–7 depending on the question) and that the favorability percentages represent the share of students who selected threshold responses on those scales. She and several committee members recommended follow-up focus groups and school-level reflection to understand differences by grade and student group.
Shorter said the survey results will be used to guide targeted interventions tied to the district’s strategic priority on inclusion and belonging, and that the district will administer the instrument again in spring to measure change. She also said schools have guided reflection questions in the dashboard and that staff will support local planning based on the data.
The committee asked Shorter to return in the spring with updated results and to provide guidance to schools on interpreting subgroup differences and next steps.
