PVRHSD—Increasing opportunities for social and emotional learning, improving student-staff relationships, and enhancing diversity by including new content into school curriculum, such as LGBTQ+ history, were recommendations heard at the June 6 Pascack Valley Regional High School District school board meeting.
The board took no action on the recommendations, presented following a report on the district’s recent school climate survey.
Dr. Mark Russo, district supervisor of diversity, equity and inclusion, presented the results of the high schools’ school climate survey, along with two high school students from Pascack Hills and Pascack Valley, who presented recommendations based on survey findings.
Presenting survey recommendations for Pascack Hills were sophomores Katie Verde and Lili Plechner while sophomores Tolu Bosede and Amanda Polyniak offered Pascack Valley recommendations.
The school climate survey, Russo previously said, was mainly used to help shape ongoing efforts related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the regional high schools.
He said, “My hope is that some of these recommendations we’ve just heard will help all of our students, and groups of students, flourish and thrive.”
During public comment, Pascack Hills Senior Rebecca Cohen said though she believed it was a law to teach LGBTQ+ history in New Jersey now, she did not learn anything about LGBTQ+ history. She suggested incorporating more topics about “race, gender, sexuality, everything like that it would make (for) a more enriched environment for the classroom.”
She said this could help “in making more identities seen and heard.”
Trustee Kelly Blundy, Woodcliff Lake, praised the students who presented recommendations, noting “wellness is very near and dear to my heart.” She said she would like to meet with them to get specific details about the climate survey. She said the survey raised topics such as coping skills, conflict resolution, trauma resolution, and working through difficulties and becoming stronger.
She said “maybe we have classes on how to get out of your comfort zone” and noted she had moved to two different middle schools as a youngster, and that may have helped her handle things better. She told Russo that she “would love to be more involved with this.”
Trustee Michael Weaver, Montvale, said the survey data was well-presented and noted related work is happening with students and administrators in high schools.
“But I don’t know if we as a board have done the necessary work in this area over the past year,” he said, noting he was uncertain when the board’s Equity Committee had met since last summer.
Weaver questioned “at what point” will trustees take the recommendations “and do something about it?” He noted “it would be nice to know how we as a board can support that work.” No further comments or action occurred at the meeting.
Some Pascack Hills recommendations focused on social and emotional learning and diversity. To enhance diversity, a student committee called for more diverse representation as well as student choice in class content.
Some Pascack Valley recommendations include improving staff’s ability to address conflicts in the classroom with more training for teachers to understand difficult situations. Other suggestions include more support for special ed teachers, restorative justice, and anti-bullying/inclusivity workshops.
Russo said the school climate survey contained 13 domains or topic areas, including student sense of belonging (students only), leadership support (staff only), organizational resources and support (staff only), collegial support (staff only), and faculty support and engagement (staff and parents/caregivers only).
Most of the survey topics were addressed to all stakeholders, which included students in grades 3-5 and 6-12, faculty, and parents/caregivers. The topics included academic culture and classroom practices, supportive staff-student relationships, supports for students’ social and emotional learning, behavioral expectations, negative student interpersonal behaviors; prosocial student interpersonal behaviors, student voice and involvement, and sense of physical safety.
He said in order to understand the surveys’ findings, which he described as dense, two school climate teams were formed at Pascack Hills and Pascack Valley high schools, composed of students, faculty and administrators.
Russo said that the three stakeholder groups in both high schools registered more favorable designations in the 13 topic areas than not favorable. Russo laid out survey findings he said were strong at both schools.
He said nearly 93% of students said they participated in clubs, groups or activities at their schools and nearly 95% of parents agreed that students have chances to get involved in such activities.
He said that 92% of students and nearly 97% of parents agree that most or all teachers expect students to work hard. Moreover, nearly 88% of parents feel welcome at Hills or Valley, 91% feel respected by staff, and nearly 96% of parents respect teachers and staff at their child’s school.
Russo said “certain areas of relative weakness require further attention.” He noted students have differing perceptions of school culture and climate based on their race and gender.
He said “students identifying as male have more positive impressions in each domain (topic area)” while students identifying as “non-binary, transgender or ‘I use a different word’ had the least favorable impression in almost every domain in both schools.”
He said students identifying as white had more positive impressions in 15 of 18 domains compared with students identifying as American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic, Latino, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
“This has been a focus over the past several years and was evident in past school climate surveys and this will continue to be a focus,” said Russo.
All three stakeholder groups – students, faculty, and parents – ranked social and emotional learning in the bottom three for each of the groups in both schools. He said the social and emotional learning component is defined as “schoolwide and instructional practices that promote development of students’ social and emotional skills and supports and availability of resources to help parents and caregivers talk to their children about emotions.”
Russo said social and emotional learning needs to be a focus at both high schools.
He said “prosocial behaviors” – behaviors such as students being kind, students including others and students solving interpersonal problems “was in the bottom three for students but not for staff or parents/caregivers.” He said these issues “were from the 10,000-foot view now but we intend to dive into them and try and understand them better moving forward.”
Some Pascack Hills recommendations focused on social and emotional learning and diversity. To enhance diversity, a student committee called for more diverse representation as well as student choice in class content.
This might include hanging diversity posters, as well as posters promoting different cultural celebrations and events in classrooms and hallways, plus discussions of current events. Moreover, establishing “safe spaces” in schools was listed as a goal to promote conversations about sensitive and non-curriculum topics.
To promote social and emotional learning, recommendations called for proactively prioritizing personal connections and mental health; training for staff; and providing an advisory or homeroom into student schedules to facilitate relationships between students and staff, and also provide a safe space for students to speak about non-curriculum-related topics.
Some Pascack Valley recommendations include improving staff’s ability to address conflicts in the classroom with more training for teachers to understand difficult situations. Other suggestions include more support for special ed teachers, restorative justice, and anti-bullying/inclusivity workshops.
Other recommendations were to improve students’ relationships with each other and the community. These include creating a space or advisory period where students can build relationships and create a sense of belonging, promoting student resources available for wellness and guidance, and empowering students to speak up.
This might include a well-known safe space where other students can report racist or hateful speech or create a group of peer leaders that can help to slowly change school culture.
For more information, see “District Seeks Views on School Climate,” Dec. 13, 2021.