Wake County Public School System Student Survey Results, 2022-23

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) conducts a student survey in the spring of each year to determine the level of student engagement in and out of the classroom. Students who actively participate in their learning process generally experience higher academic achievement (Wang & Hofkens, 2020). The survey contains items from the Student Engagement Instrument (Appleton et al., 2006), which measures students' level of engagement in school on five domains: Teacher-Student Relationships, Control and Relevance of School Work, Peer Support for Learning, Future Aspirations and Goals, and Family Support and Learning. Additional items to measure three other domains were added to include Rigor, Civic Engagement, and Creativity. The survey results from 2022-23 can be used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses so schools can proactively determine whether the environment is meeting the needs of students (Huang, 2019). The purpose of this report is to highlight key district findings from the 2022-23 survey administration. A total of 33,643 eligible students in grades 5-12 (33.3%) from 188 schools completed the survey during the administration period. The report examines survey domains, presents item-level results by grade level, and concludes by exploring item-level results across various student groups. Overall, most students reported positive perceptions of their school experience, although middle school students had lower rates of agreement on four of the eight student engagement domains; Teacher-Student Relationships, Control and Relevance of School Work, Civic Engagement, and Creativity. Among all domains, the highest percent agreement was for Future Aspirations and Goals and Family Support and Learning, both of which were more than 90%. Analysis by student groups revealed that African-American students had lower percent agreement for approximately 25% of the items in the survey. Detailed results are summarized in the subsequent sections of this report.