Parent, Student, and Teacher Perceptions of School Climate: Investigations Across Organizational Levels

South Carolina is one of several states that annually assesses school climate through questionnaire data administered to parents, teachers, and students. The purposes of this study were to investigate the dimensions of school climate; to determine if the perceptions of school climate change from the years between elementary and high school; and to examine the relationships between climate, school report card variables and indicators of school performance, such as standardized test scores. Exploratory factor analysis revealed dimensions of climate underlying responses to the student, teacher, and parent surveys. Four student factors, five teacher factors, and four parent factors were identified. Factor scores, aggregated to the school level, were used along with other report card variables, in a block linear regression analysis to determine how much variance each of the factors could explain in the outcomes. Regression information suggested that the climate surveys can be very helpful in understanding the complex dynamics of the relationships between school-level contexts and school achievement