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Special Features and Benefits

Content Alignment with LCAP

Provides detailed data related to three required state priorities — school climate, pupil engagement, and parent involvement — and identifies the needs of vulnerable subgroups and the conditions of school facilities. The majority of districts in California now use CalSCHLS data as LCAP indicators.

Full-service Technical Support

On-call technical assistance, comprehensive guidebooks and workbooks, informative trainings, and the latest technologies help you throughout survey planning and administration.

Cost Effectiveness

The costs of survey administration and report preparation are subsidized by the California Department of Education - making survey administration very inexpensive compared to competing surveys. Online administration further reduces local costs. Downoad the Fee Schedule

Customization

Can be customized at the local level by adding questions and combining modules on different topics.

Workshops on Understanding and Using Data

CalSCHLS staff help schools understand their survey results and use them to guide decision-making and action planning (fee applies). Using CalSCHLS for the LCAP.

Psychometric Quality

The surveys have been widely studied and validated. Psychometric studies have shown that the surveys’ measures have a high degree of reliability.

Established Infrastructure

Has a fully-developed print and online data collection and reporting infrastructure designed to facilitate easy survey administration and to ensure the protection of human subjects and accuracy of results.

Stakeholder Comparability

Users can compare results among students, teachers and other staff, and parents to gain a more comprehensive picture of stakeholder perceptions and experiences and how they vary.

Geographic Comparability

A district can compare its data to other district’s throughout the state and to state norms. The system is a rich resource for research and program planning at the county and state levels.

Identification of Student Subgroup Needs

The secondary CHKS provides data on a wide variety of student subgroups, enabling the identification of the vulnerable populations, as required by the LCAP (e.g., truants, chronic absentees, financially disadvantaged, English language learners, the disconnected or disengaged, those experiencing bullying or poor mental health, in foster care or homeless, or engaged in risk behaviors such as substance use, violence, or gang membership).

School-level Reports and Report Cards

Although the primary purpose of the system is to provide district-level reports, for most districts school-level data are available on request. A user-friendly, graphic School Climate Report Card summarizes key findings in fourteen domains that have been linked to academic outcomes. Similar in structure to the School Climate Report Card, a Mental Health Report graphically summarizes up to five years of trend data on five mental health and wellness measures.