Jenny Pinedo, Director of Special Education & Student Services, presented the results of the Fall 2022 Pupil Attitude towards Self and School (PASS) survey results for Winters Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees at the Feb. 16 school board meeting.
Pinedo began with a summary of what PASS is and what the survey entails. “This universal SEL (social and emotional learning) screener helps identify fragile learners who are held back by factors such as a lack of confidence, motivation or a connection to the school.
“PASS focuses on three broad areas,” Pinedo said continuing, “connectedness, self-efficacy and motivation. The PASS Assessment allows districts to break down students’ feelings towards schools into nine different areas to better target supports and interventions.”
Some of the nine areas measure student perception of themselves in relation to their academic career, including, “perceived learning capability,” which measures how students feel towards their own academic abilities and towards assessments, and “self-regard,” which seeks to measure how each student views their ability to succeed and how they define success in school in the first place. Others, like “attitude towards teachers” and “feelings about school” gauge the student’s feelings towards their learning environment, including of their educators and their level of inclusion in the school community.
Each area is individually measured as either high, within the 31st to 100th percentile of all respondents, moderate, within the 21 to 30 percentile, low moderate, sixth to 20 percentile, or low, lowest five percent of responses, satisfaction with school experience.
For Waggoner Elementary School, Pinedo noted that these students are only measured on four of the nine given their age, with the results showing high satisfaction for all students regarding learner self-worth and response to learning, with first through second grades having high satisfaction in feelings about school and preparedness for learning, and only kindergarteners feeling moderate satisfaction for these latter two areas.
For Shirley Rominger Intermediate school students, of the nine categories for third through fifth grades, only grades three and five’s feelings about school and fifth-grade attitudes to attendance and response to curriculum demands were not high satisfaction, which Pinedo said are areas for improvement.
At Winters Middle School, moderate results were reported for five of the nine areas for sixth graders and three for eighth graders, though Pinedo noted that “since this assessment was given, we’ve seen some really positive changes as a result of student friendship and social skills groups being conducted by RISE clinician as well as our behaviorist, and we’ve seen our student satisfaction appear to rise.”
Finally, Pinedo presented the results for Winters High School. Though grade nine’s results showed high satisfaction in all but response to curriculum demands, which was moderate, and Grade 10 showed high satisfaction in all but general work ethic, also moderate, Grades 11 and 12 showed what Pindeo called “areas for growth.”
“The biggest (areas) include feelings about school, self-regard, general work ethic, and response to curriculum demands; these needs are most seen in 11th and 12th-grade students,” Pinedo explained.
Pindo noted that students in these grades began high school during the pandemic, likely only recently having consistent in-person schooling, which could affect both perceptions towards academics and their connectedness to their school community.
Regarding the next steps for the results, Pindeo said the data is going to be reviewed by leaders and educators at each school along with their teachers, and will implement the provided PASS workbook that details how to analyze and make use of the data, “in a way that supports the development for interventions and planning for supports,” Pinedo said and noted that the Spring PASS survey will allow the district and each school to see their progress.
Trustee Sterling Davis expressed her appreciation for the survey as a means of gauging student welfare outside of academic measurements, saying, “I really appreciate that this survey looks deeply at a student’s emotional well-being, as that is a huge indicator for their academic success.”
Pinedo emphasized the utility of this assessment in determining how the district can best help all its students, allowing them to “really dive in and see what this particular group of students…this is the support that’s needed in order to help them have a greater satisfaction with school and provide the support they need to be successful.”
The next Winters JUSD school board meeting is Thursday, April 6 at 6 p.m. at the school district office building.
