April 24, 2026
“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child,
that must the community want for all its children.” John Dewey
Cultivating Belonging and Community is one of our district goals. Naming it was the easy part. Honesty in measuring to the extent we are living it is the work before us now, and the part that matters.
School climate is, at its simplest, what it feels like to be part of our school community. The metaphor we find most useful in describing it is weather. You want a clear, mild day so classroom work can proceed without distractions. Feeling safe, feeling connected, and feeling engaged are not incidental to learning — they are the ground where learning grows. The only honest way to measure this is to ask the people who live it every day, and ask in a way that invites the unvarnished truth about where we are strong . . . where we have work to do. (For those who want the research behind this, you can read more about positive school climate here.)
Rutgers University’s School Climate Transformation Project, in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Education, has invited Fair Lawn to participate in a no-cost school climate assessment. We were also selected for the NJ SCI Coaching and Consultative Support Cohort, which provides additional training and guidance to act on the data. The NJ SCI Survey is comprehensive, research-based, and hosted on a secure platform. Students, staff, and families will all have the chance to weigh in.
So . . . Who can participate?
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Students in grades three through twelve
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Families of all students
Faculty and staff across the district will also take the survey, because a school climate is experienced by the adults in the building as much as the students, and their perspective is part of the picture we need.
The NJ SCI Survey is anonymous and does not collect personal identifying information. In the coming days, principals will email families the details for the student survey along with a unique link for the parent and caregiver survey. Families with children in more than one building will complete a separate survey for each building. Participation is optional, but the broader it is, the more informed our planning becomes.
I’d like to add one more take-home message. The survey is a good reason to sit down with your child and ask how school is going. How do kids get along? What would you change if you could? Can you be yourself there? Those conversations are worth having any day of the week, whether or not a survey link is in your inbox. We welcome you to have those chats, fill out the survey, and fold what you learn at your own kitchen table into what we learn as a district.
Sincerely,
Superintendent of Schools
Read the entire Corner Column here.
