Carlisle School Committee Working Group Begins Building Climate and Culture Monitoring Framework

CARLISLE — July 9, 2026 — Carlisle School Committee subgroup launches effort to build a formal school climate monitoring framework. The Climate and Culture Working Group, chaired by School Committee member Brian Waterson, held its first meeting July 9 to draft a charge and brainstorm data sources for a framework the full committee will use throughout the 2026-27 school year. The group identified the Youth Risk Behavior Survey — results expected this summer — and the Panorama student survey, to be re-administered in October, as anchor instruments, and discussed supplementing them with qualitative input from student affinity group advisors, METCO directors Solange and Malinthi, and community coffee feedback forms. DEIB Director Andrew Herchek urged the group to reframe incident-reporting data as evidence of a healthy upstander culture, saying "we have truly changed the culture in terms of how folks feel about feeling courageous, feeling bold to report these things." The group assigned one member to contact facilitators Carlos Hoyt and Donna Hicks about school committee professional development, and expects to meet again in August with a framework targeted for completion by early October.