The Relationship Between School Climate and Student Achievement at the Elementary School Level

Abstract

In the past decade, teachers and researchers have gradually recognized the vital role school climate plays in the public-school setting (Thaps, Cohen, Guffey, and Higgins-D'Alessandro, 2013). One of the greatest indicators of achievement is the relationship between school and student socioeconomic status (Sirin, 2005). According to Bryk and Schneider (2003), if schools create positive learning environments, students will achieve at a higher level than what their socioeconomic background would otherwise predict. The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify the relationship between school climate and academic achievement at the elementary school level. The researcher examined extant data from the 2018-2019 school year, which included Grade 5 Mathematics and Reading Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rate and school climate surveys from two school districts in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The first, referred to as the Central VA Division, had 46 elementary schools. The second, referred to as the Northern VA Division, had 51 elementary schools. The findings indicated that the relationship school climate dimension had the strongest correlation to the Reading and Mathematics SOL pass rates in both school districts. School leaders and building-level principals could use these findings to better understand the importance of school climate and make it a priority; this, in turn, could affect student achievement throughout the school and the community.