Health, Well-Being, and Education in an Urban School District

Research Report

Health, Well-Being, and Education in an Urban School District

Baltimore City Public Schools Prior to the Implementation of the 21st Century Buildings Program

Kata Mihaly, Tamara Dubowitz, Andrea Richardson, Gabriella C. Gonzalez

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Preface

Over half of public school buildings across the country fail to provide adequate conditions for students to learn and school staff to work. Prior research has established an evidence base of associations between high-quality school building facilities and student, staff, school, and community health and education outcomes. Recognizing this research and the need for facility improvements, Maryland has approved the 21st Century Buildings Program, which is paid for by Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools), the State of Maryland, and the City of Baltimore. The program will invest close to $1 billion to renovate or replace over two dozen school buildings. City Schools, with support from the Fund for Educational Excellence, selected the RAND Corporation to study the impact of new school buildings on student, staff, school, and community outcomes.

This report summarizes data collected in the first phase of the study. Efforts include data collection using a number of instruments during the 2015?2016 school year, prior to the renovations and rebuilding effort. We describe the schools that are part of this data collection and the instruments that were fielded, summarize a selection of the data collected, and present correlational analyses of the relationship between select student, teacher, school and community outcomes. This research was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of children and their communities, and promoting a Culture of Health. The work was conducted within RAND Health and RAND Education.

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Table of Contents

Preface ......................................................................................................................................iii Figures ....................................................................................................................................... v Tables........................................................................................................................................ vi Summary .................................................................................................................................. vii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................... viii Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ ix 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1

Study Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 1 2. Background and Conceptual Framework................................................................................. 3 3. Sample Characteristics and Data Sources................................................................................ 7

Baltimore City Public Schools............................................................................................................. 7 Study Schools ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Overview of Data Collection............................................................................................................... 9 Data Sources ..................................................................................................................................... 10 Individual-Level Primary Data .......................................................................................................... 11 Built Environment Primary Data ....................................................................................................... 14 Secondary Data................................................................................................................................. 15 4. Exploratory Analysis of Baseline Data.................................................................................. 18 Research Question 1.......................................................................................................................... 18 Research Question 2.......................................................................................................................... 25 Research Question 3.......................................................................................................................... 29 5. Conclusions and Future Work............................................................................................... 34 Appendix A. Elementary and High School Student Survey ....................................................... 36 Appendix B. School Staff Survey ............................................................................................. 41 Appendix C. Principal Survey and Interview Protocol .............................................................. 45 Appendix D. School Observation Tool ..................................................................................... 55 Appendix E. Street Segment Audit Tool ................................................................................... 65 References ................................................................................................................................ 68

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Figures

Figure 2.1. Conceptual Framework Guiding Research Questions ................................................ 6

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