Incorporates the department of elementary and secondary education's SurveyWorks school climate indicators for evaluating the performance of LEAs and individual public schools.
H5162 amends Rhode Island’s Education Accountability Act to require the state Board of Education’s annual evaluation system for local education agencies and individual public schools to incorporate SurveyWorks school climate indicators, or any successor tool used to measure school climate. The bill keeps the existing framework for evaluating school performance based on student achievement, assessments, improvement plans, and reporting, but adds school climate data as an explicit component of accountability.
The measure also preserves and reinforces the state’s broader data-collection and reporting structure for public schools and districts. It continues requirements for district improvement plans, annual action plans, school improvement plans, RICAS success plans for low-performing districts, and annual reporting on curriculum, staffing, attendance, discipline, budgets, special education, and English language learner programs. The bill applies to public school districts, regional districts, state-operated schools, regional collaborative schools, charter schools, and mayoral academies, and it takes effect upon passage.
The bill primarily updates the Education Accountability Act by directing the Board of Education to include SurveyWorks school climate indicators, disaggregated by LEA and school, in the state’s school and district evaluation system. It does not replace the existing accountability structure, but adds another required metric for measuring school performance and climate. The bill also leaves in place the extensive reporting, planning, and data-sharing obligations already imposed on districts and schools, including confidentiality protections for personnel-related educator evaluation data.
The available voting history suggests broad support for the bill. It passed the House Committee on Education unanimously, 9-0, and later passed the full House by a substantial margin, 62-10. No committee transcript or recorded debate is provided, so there is no direct evidence of detailed public discussion, but the vote pattern indicates the bill was generally viewed favorably as a modest accountability update rather than a major policy overhaul.
The main policy issue appears to be whether school climate data should be formally incorporated into accountability measures alongside academic performance and other reporting requirements. Supporters likely view SurveyWorks as a useful way to capture student and school environment factors that are not reflected in test scores alone. Any opposition would likely center on concerns about adding another layer of evaluation, the reliability or burden of climate surveys, or the broader administrative load of Rhode Island’s already extensive school reporting system, though the record provided does not identify specific objections.