CLIMATE SURVEY ASK
11/10/2020
11/30 - We've since received a response to this ask. Check out the update and our thoughts here.
Dear Rector Giles, Mr. Cox and the St. Paul's School Board of Trustees,
The SPS 2020 Society was formed this summer by a group of SPS alumni in response to the publication of Lacy Crawford's book Notes on a Silencing and the nation-wide Black Lives Matter demonstrations in response to George Floyd's death. Our mission is to inspire, empower and connect current and former students of St. Paul's to make their school and the world around them a better place. We believe that, given its prominence among independent boarding schools, St. Paul's can, and should, take on more of a leadership role on these issues, thereby enabling it to better serve its current students and also to effect similar changes at other independent schools.
One issue we believe to be of necessity is a school climate survey. We understand that St. Paul's has undertaken climate surveys in the past, but has not done so recently, nor have they ever made the results of those surveys public. Only with full transparency can we ever truly move forward.
Other peer schools, including Exeter, Hotchkiss, and Loomis Chaffee, have recently undertaken climate surveys or committed to doing so. We understand that SPS has, in the past, completed the YRBSS survey (https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/questionnaires.htm), however the results have never been shared publicly. While this survey is not as comprehensive as the one we are proposing, we believe the results of most recent YRBSS survey should be shared publicly. As of this summer, the state of New Hampshire now requires colleges and universities to conduct climate surveys and post results (House Bill 705; https://www.nhcadsv.org/hb705.html).
We ask that St. Paul's School commit to undertaking a comprehensive climate survey (as outlined in HB705) with a third party administrator by the start of the spring term. We hope to see it completed by the end of the 2020-2021 school year, and for the results to be released before the start of the 2021-2022 school year. We believe that doing so would help SPS demonstrate leadership in this area, and would offer an important means of understanding the current needs of SPS students.
Given the steady emergence of devastating stories of harassment, assault, and race-based aggression on campus from alumni across the decades, we consider a contemporary survey to be a critical tool for developing a shared and transparent portrait of life on campus today. It will minimize the likelihood that people working on behalf of the school will form opposing views of progress and opportunities, and will provide open and accessible data that other schools across the nation consider to be a standard tool of student health and well-being.
We have read letters that ask for multiple changes; we have read letters that ask for unrealistic changes. In the hopes of gaining a better understaning of what campus life is truly like for the students, we have limited our request to this one item we believe to be both necessary and realistic.
In conclusion, we ask that SPS:
Commit to a climate survey using the basic survey outlined in HB705 (more comprehensive than the YRBSS survey) by the start of the spring term.
Administer said climate survey by the end of the 2020-2021 school year.
Have the data compiled by a third party administrator, share the data with the community via website and community wide email (parents, alumni and students) before the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
Share the results of the most recent YRBSS survey within two months of receipt of this letter.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Founding members of the SPS 2020 Society
