Each year in November and again in March we give our students an anonymous survey. In it, we ask all sorts of questions in an effort to get a better sense of how things are going collectively for our students and whether there are areas of their learning that need special attention. The survey is intentionally broad and invites students to share about homework, hours of sleep, academic honesty, friendships, technology use, inclusivity, courage and kindness.

            What the kids shared with us was on the whole either heartening or about what we would expect when working with over 200 wonderful and oh so human sixth, seventh and 8^th graders. Students reported that:

These are great numbers and reflect a welcoming and kind school culture. Would we love it if every student consistently felt comfortable being themselves at school, absolutely, but we also recognize that this takes significant courage at this age. The fact that so many students view themselves as active, not passive, problem solvers, agents in control of their future, is also commendable. I am particularly pleased that students feel supported by each other and by the adults in our community. This speaks volumes about our students and faculty.

91% of students spend two hours or less on homework a night with 80% spending an hour and a half or less. This is about where we want to be as a program. Homework is intended to reinforce learning, giving students practice as well as repetition. It is not intended to usurp every waking minute between dismissal and bedtime. As a matter of fact, we actively solicit this data every few months to be sure that, on average, our intended expectation matches students’ experience. We want kids to learn how to organize their work, complete it with pride and consistency AND still have time to enjoy childhood. That means that we want the best of both worlds for our students, the development of good study/organizational habits AND time to be with family, read a good book or play with siblings. If your child consistently spends more than two and a half hours on homework, please let us know as we would like to be a partner in taming the homework beast.

40% of students report never seeing a child cheat at school and another 42% report seeing a child cheat once or twice a year. 17% see cheating happen once a month. Obviously we want to teach the virtues of honesty everywhere and every time; yet, research indicates that 90% or more of high school students report that they have cheated with the most often cited reason being to please parents or to avoid parent consequences. In school, we try to have robust conversations about the value and benefit of academic honesty. We also do our best to catch student missteps believing that the MS years are a great time to learn as the stakes are low.

30% of kids get seven hours of sleep or less on weeknights with 4% getting less than six. Nine or ten hours is recommended for kids this age. While you cannot force a child to sleep, as parents we can do our best to ensure the conditions and regularity with which students have the opportunity to get a good night’s sleep. Moreover, research indicates how important sleep “hygiene” is to health and academic success. Kids who regularly get less than the recommended number of hours of sleep underperform their well-rested peers. Surprisingly, many of the symptoms of chronically tired young people mirror those associated with ADHD.

We also ask lots of questions about what students experience at school. These questions delve into issues of inclusivity and kindness in a wide variety of different dimensions ranging from size and age to race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, learning ability, and athletic ability. Unsurprisingly, there is some unkindness that happens at school across all of these dimensions. In all cases the vast majority (70-95%) of students report that their personal experience is that these unkindnesses, if they happen at all, are infrequent, once or twice a year. That said, my strongly held preference is for unkindness to never happen at CA. Of course, this is not a realistic expectation; instead, the data reinforces why we work so hard with students to develop empathy, interpersonal skills and the ability to stand up for themselves and others. It is also why we work carefully and consistently to support students should they be the recipient of unkindness.

Fewer kids than I would expect experience online unkindness. According to the survey, 90% of students report never having other students text, email or post mean things about them online. 7.5% report it happening once or twice a year with a total of five students reporting that this happens more frequently. This seems low to me, but perhaps all of our school and parent efforts to create awareness of how important it is to behave appropriately on line is paying dividends.

Once we have gathered this information we analyze and discuss it as a faculty looking for patterns and insights into how we can best intervene with programming, curriculum and experiences to develop the skills and understandings that will create the most change in behavior e.g. more academic honesty, inclusivity, and kindness. We also share this data appropriately with students in advisory or in class inviting students to be a part of shaping our community to be the best it can be. Like all work that is important, building and rebuilding our community on a daily, weekly and annual basis is a top school priority and one of the reasons the CA middle school is such a healthy environment for young people.