Survey input from parents and students could influence how the state formally evaluates its public schools under a bill passed Tuesday in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
Warwick Democratic Rep. Joseph M. McNamara sponsored H5162 in the House, which passed 62-10 on the chamber’s floor, and would see feedback from SurveyWorks incorporated into state assessments of schools. SurveyWorks is an annual statewide questionnaire of Rhode Island’s public schools that garners feedback from students, families and teachers. The 2025 iteration of the survey also went live in January and can be filled out by students and families through March 31.
McNamara’s bill would use what the survey calls “school climate indicators” as part of assessments regulated by the Rhode Island Education Accountability Act of 2019, which monitors factors like absenteeism, test scores and graduation rates to determine school quality.
The school climate indicators are derived from answers to survey questions like “How well do administrators at your child’s school create a school environment that helps children learn?” and “How motivating are the classroom lessons at your child’s school?”
“SurveyWorks is an important tool that lets the Department of Education know how parents, students and educators feel about the school by commenting on their personal experiences,” McNamara said in a statement, noting that the survey was filled out by over 125,000 people last year, including parents, students and educators.
“Utilizing this information when evaluating local educational agencies affords the Department of Education a broad range of information beyond testing and other measurements of student performance,” McNamara continued.
After passing in the House last year, McNamara’s bill got stuck in the Senate. He introduced similar bills in 2021 and 2023.
The House Committee on Education, of which McNamara is chair, first heard this year’s bill on Feb. 6. McNamara said in the bill’s introductory hearing that it had “passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support” last year in the House.
Kelsey Bala, a senior policy associate at the child advocacy organization KIDS COUNT, wrote in a Feb. 6 testimony supporting the bill that the 2019 Accountability Act established a system with six indicators to measure student success and school quality.
“However, this new accountability system does not yet include important school climate indicators, such as student and family engagement, student sense of belonging, family support, teacher-student relationships, safety, and facilities,” Bala wrote, adding that states like Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Carolina use school climate in their accountability data.
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires accountability data be collected and kept for school systems nationwide, although states differ in how the scope of the data they collect and use.
The bill now goes to the Rhode Island Senate, where it will be scheduled for a floor introduction and eventual committee hearing. General Assembly spokesperson Daniel Trafford said that as of Tuesday, no Senate companion to McNamara’s bill had been introduced. Sen. Ryan Pearson, a Cumberland Democrat, has introduced similar legislation in the past.
The Rhode Island Department of Education, which manages school accountability data, did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
This article was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
