School Climate Survey 2025-2026

The Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board (BHNCDSB) is committed to providing safe, caring, and inclusive places for everyone in our schools. One way that we can find out how we are doing is to ask students about their health and well-being. 

By asking students about their experience and impressions, we can identify areas of improvement and development that will have a meaningful impact. By surveying students regularly, we can also track progress we are making as changes and improvements are implemented, to see if they are improving students’ experiences at school.

The role of the BHNCDSB is to support the collection process for students and to make the best use of the information that is gathered. This is an opportunity for us to learn more about the students we support and help us to identify needs of our school communities. All BHNCDSB students between grade 4 and 12 will be invited to participate.

The School Climate Survey used by the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board (BHNCDSB) includes questions created by the School Climate Survey Team and also uses the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI). The School Climate Survey satisfies BHNCDSB’s requirement to conduct an anonymous school climate survey in accordance with the Education Act s.169.1(1)(a), (a.1), (a.2) and PPM 145. 

The MDI is a self-report survey and is completed by children starting in grades 4 (i.e., Introduction to the MDI). The MDI survey questions were developed by a research team in the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), which is led by Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl at the University of British Columbia. For more information about how the MDI was developed, please visit: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/mdi/

The School Climate Survey asks students about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in school and in the community. The questions on the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) are related to the fives areas of development that are strongly linked to well-being, health, and academic achievement: Physical Health & Well-Being, Connectedness, Social & Emotional Development, School Experiences, and Use of After-School Time (Sample MDI Questionnaire).

We are inviting students to participate in this anonymous survey between April 20, 2026 and May 1, 2026. All students between grade 4 and grade 12 will be invited to participate.

Specific dates for each school will be arranged by each school administrator.

The survey is anonymous. This means that no personal information will be collected from students when they participate in the survey (e.g., email, name, birthday, student ID). Since responses are de-identified from point of collection, responses cannot be combined with other types of information previously collected under the Education Act or under other legislation as required.

This questionnaire is not a test and will not be used to evaluate any one individual student, nor be used for report cards, diagnosis, or psychological assessment purposes. The information that your child provides in the survey will be collected anonymously and will be combined with responses provided by other students in their school to generate a School Report and combined with all students within Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board (BHNCDSB) to generate a Board Report. These reports will be shared with the school and may be shared with community partners.

The results of the survey (i.e., reports) will be used to inform activities to enhance school engagement, positive learning experiences and academic success at the school and board level.The MDI survey will not be used by the Board to rank schools, students, or classes in any way.

Non-identifiable survey responses on the MDI may be provided to the HELP group at UBC for research purposes. Researchers who receive permission to use the MDI data through HELP for research or statistical purposes will be provided data that cannot be connected to any individual student.

By law, Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board (BHNCDSB) must protect the privacy and personal information of students. The School Climate Survey complies with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) and the requirements of the Education Act. Only a few BHNCDSB staff (i.e., BHNCDSB School Climate Survey team) will have access to students’ responses, but only to do research. Teachers, principals, and other school board staff WILL NOT see survey responses.

Participation in the School Climate Survey is voluntary. Any student may choose not to participate, to stop participating, or to skip a question at any time. Additionally, parents/guardians of students under 18 years of age can ask for their child be exempt from participating in School Climate Survey. As part of our communication campaign, information has been and may be distributed electronically by school messenger, on our website, and/or on social media.

Parents/guardians who would like their child to be exempt from participating in the MDI may request an exemption at any time before April 16, 2026, by completing the withdrawal of consent form.

If a parent/guardian does not submit a request to opt-out, all students will receive an invitation to participate in the School Climate Survey during class time.

Yes, the School Climate Survey is voluntary. The student can choose if they want to complete the survey. The student can stop answering questions at any time. The student can skip any question(s) they do not wish to answer.

Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board’s (BHNCDSB) research team has developed a data management plan to comply with Board policies, Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA), and the Education Act. All survey responses will be kept on encrypted servers and password protected devices with role-based access restrictions. All collected data will be stored in a secure, password-protected network drive owned and managed by BHNCDSB and on an encrypted server for five years. The data will be securely disposed of as per the BHNCDSB Records Retention Schedule.

Only the BHNCDSB School Climate Survey team will have access to your child’s anonymous survey responses. We are not collecting names or identifiers (e.g., email), but we are collecting identifiers that, if combined with other information, could allow a determined individual to re-identify specific people. We are implementing safeguards to prevent this potential outcome. For questions or concerns related to the privacy of your child’s survey data, please contact your school administrator or the BHNCDSB Manager of Communications and Privacy Officer (records@bhncdsb.ca).

All BHNCDSB students between grade 4 to grade 12 will be invited to participate. The survey will be available online and teachers will administer the MDI during class time, with board devices available for student use.

Students will be invited to participate in a voluntary online survey during school time with staff supervision using a Board provided device as needed. Your child’s responses to the questions will be collected, stored, and presented anonymously – only the BHNCDSB School Climate Survey team will have access to the anonymous survey data and will create anonymous reports for each school and the Board. If a question bothers a student in any way, the student may skip the question or can stop answering the survey all together. All students will receive information about who they can reach out to at the end of the survey, should they need help.

If your child requires support in another language to complete the survey, please make your request by contacting your school administrator.

“If a student has regular and recurring classroom supports to complete schoolwork and assessments (e.g., support provided by EAs, CYWs, SERTs, ELL supports), these supports will be available to assist the student to long onto their device, open the url link to the survey and/or orient themselves with the available accommodations (e.g., font size, Google Read&Write, Translation). These staff will ensure your child’s privacy is maintained.

Yes, if your child (the student) has a cognitive or physical challenge and is unable to participate directly, the parent/guardian should contact the school administrator to plan for another person (i.e., the parent/guardian) to complete the survey on behalf of the student.

If you have questions or comments about the School Climate Survey  at Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board (BHNCDSB), please contact your school administrator or research@bhncdsb.ca and a member of the School Climate Survey team will respond to your inquiry.