by Eui Jin Song

Every year, public school students from grade 3-12 in Hawaii take the Panorama Student Survey, which gathers student perception data about teaching, learning, and school climate. The survey asks students to rate their school on categories like classroom engagement, classroom climate, and teacher-student relationships. It is used by educators to analyze and improve school learning environments.
The Panorama Student Survey was developed by Dr. Hunter Gehlbach, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. While its questions are phrased vaguely because school-specific questions would not be feasible, the Newswriting team wondered how students and faculty would respond to a survey that was more specific to our school. We designed a survey that asked students and faculty what aspect of Kaiser High School deserved more support in terms of budgeting. We also asked for qualitative responses to find the precise reasoning behind their responses.