In spring 2025, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) partnered with local schools to give the DC Survey About Your School (DC SAYS) to students in public schools across the District for the first time. It asks students how they feel about their school environment. A positive school climate—one that is safe, welcoming, and supportive—can help students learn and feel ready for the future.

DC SAYS is part of OSSE’s larger work to improve school safety and promote positive culture shifts. Students in grades 3–12 answered questions about topics like belonging, supportive relationships, school safety, and managing emotions, which gives OSSE an exciting opportunity to use these data in our analyses and share what we learn with the public. For this post, we used the publicly available results from the DC School Report Card to look at how students’ feelings connect to discipline outcomes in schools.

What Students Shared

Many students said they have supportive relationships with teachers, staff, and other students. But students also reported feeling less safe and less confident in handling their emotions. These trends match those seen in other states.

Students in grades 6–12 gave lower ratings than students in grades 3–5 on almost every topic. The only topic where the older students gave a higher rating was emotion regulation, or how well students feel they can manage their feelings.

How Student Feelings Connect to School Discipline

OSSE looked at the relationship between DC SAYS responses and discipline data. These results do not show that one thing causes the other. Instead, they show how student experiences and discipline outcomes may be connected.

After controlling for the percentage of students experiencing economic disadvantage in each school, clear findings appeared:

• Schools with higher rates of violent incidents have lower safety ratings from students. The most common violent incidents include fighting, battery, and threats or intimidation.
  • For grades 3–5, each percentage point increase in violent incidents is linked to a 0.53 percentage point drop in student perceptions of safety.
  • For grades 6–12, the drop is 0.38 percentage points.
• For younger students, suspension rates relate to feelings of belonging and emotion regulation. In grades 3–5, each percentage point increase in the out-of-school suspension rate is linked to:

• A 0.64 percentage point decrease in feelings of belonging
• A 0.39 percentage point decrease in perceptions of emotion regulation

Want to know more technical details about this analysis? Read OSSE’s 2024-25 School Year Discipline Report.

Why This Matters

These findings show that school climate and student discipline are closely connected. When students feel safe, supported, and like they belong, schools also tend to have fewer serious disciplinary incidents. This supports OSSE’s ongoing work to use restorative justice practices and promote equitable discipline approaches.

Understanding how students feel gives schools important information. It helps teachers, leaders, and families work together to build school environments where all students can succeed. Please note that schools and local education agencies (LEAs) have access to a greater depth of DC SAYS data about their students, staff, and families that OSSE does not share publicly. In addition, schools and LEAs have access to supporting professional development resources to address areas of strength and concern.

This post was created with the assistance of Microsoft CoPilot to summarize content and improve readability. It was reviewed and fact-checked by OSSE staff prior to publication.