One way that a school system can systematically assess its needs and assure that plans for improvement reflect the participation of all concerned groups is through use of the School Community Climate Survey (SCCS). The SCCS is a process for gathering information on people's attitudes, analyzing these attitudes in terms of perceived needs, assigning priorities, and reporting the results in an understandable fashion. By asking staff and community members to state the "desired" and "actual" condition of the school district in response to a number of questions on educationally related goals, school leaders can learn more about their school-community climate. The SCCS will not make decisions nor is it self-administering. Administrators who use it will have to determine who will be surveyed and then select a sample of that population. Instructions are provided that enable them to select a random sample of the recommended size and to use their existing organization to distribute and collect questionnaires. The questionnaires provided may be used as a part of the total SCCS package, or administrators may prepare their own questions and design sets of forms. The resulting survey data may be processed and analyzed by their organization using the SCCS software or by Battelle through a contractual agreement. (Author/LD)