Reporting Notes

State scores presented on these reports may not be comparable across survey administrations due to different populations taking the survey.

• 2023-24

  The reports incorporate Nevada’s new school climate standards. These standards have been developed in collaboration with state and national experts in school climate to help schools better use school climate data to identify areas where schools are demonstrating excellent or adequate conditions, or where conditions need improvement.

  These experts rated each survey question with the percentage of students or staff that would need to have a positive response to the survey question for a school to have adequate or excellent school conditions in the given topic (e.g., Cultural and Linguistic Competence). These ratings were then mapped to student and staff scale scores by topic.

  There are no changes in the scale score calculations, and the new standards can be applied to previous years. However, one question under the Cultural & Linguistic Competence (CLC) topic was updated in fall 2023. Even though the scaling for the CLC topic did not change, students may have answered the question differently, which can impact the CLC score.

• 2020-21

  Please use caution when interpreting school climate survey results from the 2020-21 school year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, participation rates were lower than in prior years, raising the potential for bias on survey results. In addition, many students who took the survey were learning through remote or hybrid models.

• 2019-20

  The NV-SCSEL survey was administered for the first time in the fall semester. Please use caution when comparing scores from the 2019-20 fall survey administration to scores from prior survey administrations, which were during spring semesters.

• 2017-18

  A change was made to the NV-SCSEL scoring algorithms during the 2017-18 NV-SCSEL survey administration; scores were updated to align with the updated U.S. Department of Education’s benchmark performance level categories. Aligning the scale scores with these benchmarks increases the utility of the scores by noting whether the students' perceptions of the school represent conditions that are "most favorable", "favorable", or "least favorable" for each climate construct. NV-SCSEL scores from 2017-18 onward can be interpreted as:

  • 100 - 299 - Least favorable conditions
  • 300 - 400 - Favorable conditions
  • 401 - 500 - Most favorable conditions

  Please note that scores from 2017-18 or later cannot be directly compared to scores on earlier years' reports. To examine change over time, please refer to the Trend Analysis tab on the NV-SCSEL data tool at https://nevadaschoolclimate.org/datatool.

• 2016-17

  All state benchmark scores presented in 2016-17 school reports are 2015-16 spring state scores. 2016-17 state benchmark scores are available by request at nvschoolclimate@air.org.