The importance of school climate in the school environment is well established as Halpin and Croft 1963 describe it as the personality of the school while Freiberg and Stein 1999 describe it as the heart and soul of a school p 11 Literature on school climate demonstrates that school climate is associated with student academic outcomes Lee Smith 1999 Hamre Pianta 2001 Sherblom Marshall Sherblom 2006 Niehaus Rudasill Rakes 2011 and student behavioral and psychological outcomes Steffgen Recchia Viechtbauer 2013 Wang et al 2015 Thapa Cohen Higgins D Alessandro 2013 Further a positive school climate is associated with reduced peer victimization and bullying Wang Berry Swearer 2013 and less violent behavior Brookmeyer Fanti Henrich 2006 Steffgen et al 2013 There is however a long established debate on the definition of school climate and further what dimensions comprise school climate Ramelow Currie Felder Puig 2015 Thapa et al 2013 Wang et al 2015 Zullig Koopman Patton Ubbest 2010 The current study builds on Authors 2011 and addresses this dearth in the existent school climate literature in the context of addressing the psychometric properties of the Comprehensive School Climate Inventory CSCI
