Picture this: every morning, your teacher stands at the classroom door, greeting students by name with a fist bump. Small moments like that make students feel more connected and supported by their teachers.

Teachers’ belief in students’ potential plays a powerful role in shaping their confidence, motivation and academic success.

According to the national YouthTruth survey results from 2025, Redwood ranked in the 42nd percentile when students were asked whether they felt teachers believed they could succeed, despite placing near the 80th percentile in most other categories.

The YouthTruth survey is completed by students in grades K-12 nationwide, collecting data and feedback to improve school quality. Out of the six categories that schools are tested on in the YouthTruth Survey, Redwood stands in around the 80th percentile for Engagement, Academic Challenge, Culture, Belonging and Peer Collaboration. For College and Career Readiness and Relationships categories, however, Redwood stands in the 66th and 67th percentiles, respectively.

Within the Relationships category, the lowest-scoring question on the entire survey for Redwood was: “How many of my teachers believe I can get a good grade if I try?” Redwood was in the 42nd percentile for this question, bringing down the average score of the category to the 67th percentile. 

Freshman Carter Smith said the 42nd percentile ranking does not entirely match student-teacher relationships at Redwood. In his own experience, he’s felt he’s had a mix of teachers who both do and don’t believe in their students’ success.

“I would expect us to be more like 60th. But 40th is definitely surprising because that’s really low,” Smith said. “I would say a majority of my teachers do believe in me, but some of them honestly don’t really care to try to help you. They are just there to give you a grade.”

Smith explained that the large class sizes may have an effect on teacher-student relationships. He said one of his teachers was having trouble focusing because of his large class size.

“I do think that the class size has a major effect. That’s kind of why [my teacher] got overstimulated last week, because he couldn’t focus with 34 voices talking,” Smith said.

Smith recognizes that most teachers do try their best to create relationships with their students but it can be difficult with large class sizes. 

Junior Opaline Poissonnier-Vigery said she has been fortunate enough to have a positive experience with her teachers, though she recognizes that not everyone has had the same experience.

“I’ve had the luck of having teachers who, if you don’t understand, will help you. I also know a lot of people who had bad experiences with teachers where they were kind of being put down a lot,” Poissonnier-Vigery said.

Poissonnier-Vigery feels more confident in her abilities when teachers provide abundant support.

“A lot of teachers throw you in the deep end, especially in those harder classes, and it can make it so hard and frustrating,” Poissonnier-Vigery said. “ I definitely feel [that my] teachers help me if I’m struggling, but then not only help me, but give me training wheels. [They] show me, ‘this is how you do it, now let’s try to do it yourself and then slowly taking the training wheels off.’”

According to a 2025 study published by the University of British Columbia, students who maintained strong relationships with their teachers had average grade point averages (GPAs) that were 15 percent higher than those of students with lower quality student-teacher relationships.

Smith said that when he feels teachers do not believe in his success, it directly impacts his motivation.

“If the person who’s supposed to be supporting you isn’t believing in you, you probably won’t believe in yourself as much either,” Smith said.

Teachers’ feedback can have more of an impact than just receiving a letter grade. When teachers and students effectively communicate and develop a relationship, both letter grades and emotions can be positively impacted.

To improve student-teacher relationships, Poissonnier-Vigery says even the small comments on student effort can make a big difference.

“Teachers shouldn’t make comments about how something ‘should be easy’ because not everything is easy for the same people,” said Poissonnier-Vigery. 

For example, Smith described a teacher who uses simple daily actions to create a welcoming environment. For Smith, student-teacher relationships can be built through small comments and everyday efforts rather than complex actions.

“In one of my classes, every day we walk in the door, she stands in the doorway and fist bumps all of us and says good morning and each person’s name.” Smith said, “She’ll also always check in on people if they look tired or see if they need to go to wellness. I think that’s a really welcoming environment, and clearly, she has a strong relationship [with all of us].”