90 percent of parents pleased with education their children
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Gilroy – The school district’s first survey revealed that more than 90 percent of parents are satisfied with the level of education their children are receiving. About 25 percent of households responded, and the results left Gilroy Unified School District officials smiling.
“The overall satisfaction rate I think is higher than I expected,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said. “I think it reflects well on the schools,”
The results of the 37-question parent survey will be used by individual schools to devise their accountability report cards and understand which areas they need to improve.
“It was one of our … indicators where we felt we had to have direct input from parents,” Diaz explained.
While the response appears positive, the amount of feedback received varied at each school.
Elementary schools led the response rate overall with about a 30 percent return, said Juanita Contin, the district’s coordinator for parent involvement and enrollment.
Districtwide, the spread ranged from a low of 2 percent at Brownell Academy to 76 percent at Eliot Elementary School.
The next highest return rate was at Ascension Solorsano Middle School, with 20 percent.
Gilroy High School had about a 10 percent return.
One explanation for the high response at Eliot is that the school had just opened their new computer lab and were introducing it to parents during Open House, Contin said.
From April 11 to end of May, parents had the opportunity to take the survey at open houses, in paper format, or online in both Spanish and English versions.
Younger students were sent home with surveys.
Because of Brownell’s low return rate, the survey is back online at the district’s Web site for parents to take. School administrators did not feel a 2 percent return rate was representative of the population.
The survey was co–developed by Webfeedback, a data collection service which has conducted surveys for school districts throughout San Jose, the Bay Area and Santa Cruz County.
Despite the low turnout in some schools, the district believes the sample size was large enough to make some conclusions about the information.
“Twenty–five percent is a pretty good return rate the first time around,” said Shareen Bell, president and CEO of Webfeedback. “Every district is in a different place when we start. … Some don’t have a strategic plan and just want to see what parents think. Gilroy was a step ahead – they had a strategic plan. They just needed a tool.”
The downside of the survey is that there is no way of regulating the number of times a person completes the survey.
The final five questions of the survey differed between grade levels, and just as some of the questions varied – so did the responses.
High school parents showed the least level of satisfaction in every area, while parents of elementary school students seemed to have the highest rates.
“People tend to be a little more critical at the higher levels,” Contin explained.
One question: Student discipline is being properly handled at my school, received high marks from the elementary level – 91 percent were satisfied – whereas just 66 percent of high school parents felt this way. The trend was throughout the survey: The higher the grade the lower the marks.
While about 94 percent of kindergarten through fifth grade parents felt overall satisfied with their children’s school and instruction, the figure fell to 72 percent at the high school level. Even less high school parents – 66 percent – felt that the classroom environment of the school supported student learning, while more than 96 percent of elementary parents supported the statement.
District officials were shooting for an 80 percent rating for each question, Diaz explained.
Responses gathering more than 90 percent approval is considered a strength and a figure the district will try to maintain, he said.
Questions geared towards communication between the district office and parents drew many “Don’t know” responses, hinting that there is a disconnect between the two which needs to be examined, district officials explained.
For instance, more than 15 percent of parents were uncertain whether the school district is using financial resources in a responsible manner.
Though the results were slightly skewed by the higher rate of elementary returns, district officials felt the information was representative of the GUSD community.
“We didn’t just hear from one group,” Contin said.
Individuals with children in the Gifted and Talented Education and special education programs were included.
“Typically with surveys you hear from people who are really disgruntled … or those really ecstatic about a program,” Contin said. “You don’t always get the people in the middle. I was very surprised that our results were as high as they were.”
