Understanding student and staff experiences provides an
important tool to schools and districts as they work to improve the climate in
their schools, and ultimately to improve student outcomes. The Nevada School
Climate/Social Emotional Learning Survey (NV-SCSEL) is administered to students
across the state of Nevada each fall and is used by schools to measure and
understand their students’ perceptions of key school climate topics, including
physical and emotional safety, relationships, and cultural and linguistic
competence, as well as students’ perceptions of their social and emotional
competencies. In addition, data from the NV-SCSEL are used by NDE to help
understand student needs across the state. In 2021 an annual staff survey was
introduced as a way to incorporate staff voice and experiences into school
improvement efforts.
The NV-SCSEL surveys are aligned to the ED School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS),
providing an opportunity for scores from the NV-SCSEL to be compared directly
to the performance-level benchmarks developed by the U.S. Department of
Education.
After each administration, survey results are provided to
all participating schools and districts, including:
- School-level survey
reports. These ADA-compliant PDF reports are
made available to schools shortly after the end of their survey window,
these reports provide school-level scores for each of the NV-SCSEL topics
overall and disaggregated by student characteristics, item-level response
distributions, and links to resources. These reports are available in
English and Spanish. To access the Spanish versions of the reports, select
the year and choose Spanish.
- NV-SCSEL Peer Matching
Tool. This online interactive tool allows users
to select a school of interest and identifies the most similar schools
from across the state that are most similar based on characteristics of
the schools and the students they serve. The tool provides comparison data
on school climate and social and emotional competencies between the target
and peer schools and allows users to customize the way that matches are
determined.
- NV-SCSEL Interactive Data
Tool. This online interactive tool displays data at the
school, district, and state levels, overall and by student subgroup. In
this tool, users will find:
- The
most recent survey results, overall and by student subgroup
- Trends
over time for schools that participated in multiple survey
administrations
- A
detailed breakdown of the percentage of students (overall and by student
subgroup) that perceive the school environment in each performance-level
benchmark category
- Item-level
results
- Resources
to assist schools in using data to drive climate improvements
Alignment to Nevada Laws and Regulations:
The NV-SCSEL survey was initiated in response to Senate Bill 515 (2015),
which created the Social Workers in Schools (SWxS) state block grant to place
social workers or other licensed mental health workers “in schools with identified
needs” and its requirement to award funding from the SWxS grant based on the
needs of schools (and in alignment with the intent of Senate Bill 504 (2015)
regarding safe and respectful learning environments)
The NV-SCSEL surveys also are aligned to Goal 6 of Nevada’s Statewide Plan for the Improvement of Pupils (STIP),
which states that: All students and adults learn and work together in safe
schools where identities and relationships are valued and celebrated.
Additionally, NRS 385A.650 requires school principals to
submit a plan to improve the achievement of pupils, known as School Performance Plans
(see also the Redesigned Continuous Improvement
Process beta). The plan must
include “methods for evaluating and improving the school climate” with
school climate categorized into the following topics:
- relationships
between pupils and the parents or legal guardians of pupils and educational
personnel,
- the
cultural and linguistic competence of instructional materials and
educational personnel,
- the
emotional and physical safety of pupils and educational personnel,
and the
- social,
emotional and academic development of pupils and educational personnel
Other Resources:
The National Center for Safe Supportive Learning
Environments (NCSSLE) created the School Climate Improvement
Resource Package to assist schools and districts to use
school climate survey data to drive improvement planning and includes a variety
of resources to meet a range of needs among stakeholders interested in
improving school climate.
The links below provide resources that may be useful to
schools as they plan for improvements across aspects of their school’s climate,
including the topics measured on the NV-SCSEL.
Resources for Strengthening Cultural and Linguistic Competence:
Resources for
Promoting Physical Safety:
Resources for
Enhancing Emotional Safety:
Resources for Promoting Student Social and Emotional
Competencies: