Student belonging survey shows strong response rates and mixed gains; district to dig into building-level results

Chappaqua Central School District presented results Wednesday from its districtwide student sense-of-belonging survey, which administrators said drew responses from 83.5% of students in grades 6–12.

Adam Schombart, who walked trustees through the data, described the survey as the district’s fifth administration of the instrument. “This is our fifth administration, and the survey…it was administered in January into February over a three-day period,” he said, explaining the percent-favorable metric used to summarize responses.

Districtwide percent-favorable results highlighted in the presentation included 86% for supportive relationships, 63% for positive feelings and 58% for cultural awareness and action. Presentation slides compared the district to national datasets within the survey vendor’s system and showed multi-year improvement on several categories where the district has tracked data for five administrations.

Administrators said the data will be dissected at the building level, brought to school-based teams and used to inform curricular and staff-development decisions. The board discussed the need to compare staff responses to student responses and to help adults feel more comfortable facilitating difficult classroom conversations about race and identity.

Next steps: administration will host a webinar for families with deeper results and will present school-level breakdowns to faculty and the board’s community-culture-and-belonging team for further action planning.