The community survey was completed last week, and I presented the results at the Board meeting last night. The survey is a vital part of a multi-step effort to get input from the community and better understand the potential tradeoffs we may need to make in the budget. For more background on the budget process, I recommend you read the PDF I have included in the following post.
The survey asked questions in a number of different ways — it asked parents and teachers to rate different programs directly as well as rate them in force-ranked way. There were also a number of “tradeoff” questions where it asked people to state their level of agreement (or disagreement) with questions about reducing resources in one area to benefit another area.
I have attached a PDF of the survey results, but here are some of the summary points:
- Everyone had a hard time with the tradeoffs given the relatively narrow band of answers
- Science, music (particularly middle school music), and art ranked consistently high
- Small class sizes were generally favored, but there was a bit of a “barbell” effect where the results were somewhat polarized — a number of respondents strongly supported it but a number of folks felt strongly in the opposite direction
- In general, teachers had different priorities than most other subgroups in a number of categories. They were more supportive of counseling, literacy support, and P.E. associates, but at the same time placed less value on training, particularly district/site-led training
- Parents seemed most concerned with what they were closest to, e.g. K-4 and future parents focused on class sizes and elementary programs, particularly music, while 5-8 and past parents focused on middle school programs and technology
- Maintaining fields got consistently low support
These results are very interesting and will definitely inform our discussions. I encourage everyone to attend the community forums coming up on March 26th to share your thoughts and ask questions about these tradeoffs.
