What Every District Leader should know about School Surveys

Fact 1: Your District conducts a substantial number of surveys.
It may not be something you see every day, but between Central Office and Site Administrators, your District conducts a large number of surveys every year. From Federal Programming, to Professional Development to Safety Surveys to Parent Satisfaction Surveys, your District is collecting such critical information that is necessary for your District’s smooth operation.
 
Further, and unfortunately, the focus in school surveying is in managing logistics of data collection. Real value in surveying comes from developing new insight which requires valid survey instruments backed by psychometricians and the ability to analyze the feedback received.

Fact 2: Your most important surveys might be those you are not able to conduct.
It is not easy to conduct a survey on the burning issues of the day. There are several specialized, potentially costly steps in the process. Who will design a valid questionnaire on the topic? How will you ensure you can reach a scientifically valid sample size that is representative of your community? When survey data is received how long will it take to analyze it and obtain reports? What happens after you have the tables and charts? How do you incorporate the feedback into your action plans?

Fact 3: Surveying in most Districts is fragmented and ad-hoc.
While it is hard to imagine a District without a Testing Schedule, most surveys are conducted in an ad-hoc fashion without much planning or thought to their strategic impact. In the absence of planning and coordination, your District could be over-surveying in some areas and under-surveying in others.
 
Districts use a variety of methods to capture survey data ranging from paper to first generation Web tools. This produces more data silos. No one has the full picture on surveys, access to data is limited and change in personnel means all prior knowledge and expertise on the subject may be lost to the District and the new person must start from scratch.
 
Fact 4: Surveys represent both opportunity and risk.
Timely feedback from surveys can offer valuable insight on key issues and take data-driven decision-making to new levels. However, if questions are not carefully worded, they could offend some participants and become an equally potent liability. This is the risk you take every time a survey is launched by anyone in the District. Does your District offer its staff a way to have surveys reviewed by psychometricians and survey experts before deployment? Are they following best practices on surveying in schools? Can you implement controls on who can conduct a survey without appearing to stymie staff’s ability to get their survey work done?
 
Fact 5: Online forms do not constitute a comprehensive survey solution.
In the absence of a centralized survey solution, staff members often independently procure any one of many first-generation online survey solutions. Not only are these solutions not designed with public schools in mind, they provide limited efficiency only in the area of data collection.

A foremost need of surveyors in districts is confidence in the survey instrument. They need training and support essential for successfully navigating the art and science of surveying. And since data collection is not a goal in itself, survey data needs to be analyzed using an advanced but easy-to-use reporting tool. Such reporting tools are scant and increase staff work. Meaningful analysis may require collaboration between many stakeholders.
 
Fact 6: Districts can benefit from a survey platform designed to address the special needs of public schools.
In working with over 100 school districts around the United States, we are pleased to offer an innovative, centralized survey platform for all districts.

The following is a list of major benefits of our solution:

• Even before a district engages our services, we offer a no-cost survey of surveys which will help you discover all the surveys conducted in your district.
  
  
• We provide your District a path to migrate all these surveys to a centralized analytical platform. You have visibility, access and control over surveys in the district thereby mitigating potential PR risks.
  
  
• In addition to collecting data, you benefit from a comprehensive reporting and analysis platform built into the solution. This enables you to slice and dice survey data to extract the necessary insight.
  
  
• A Collaboration Module allows all stakeholders in any survey to gain access by setting permissions level for each user.
  
  
• We provide a large number of tested and validated surveys in a Survey Bank. The Survey Bank contains sample questionnaires on all topics of interest to school administrators. We constantly update these as critical issues arise in your state. You can call us if you need a survey on a special topic, a n experienced survey methodologist will design it for you.
  
  
• We support phone and paper surveys in addition to online data collection.
  
  
• We can conduct scientific polls for community surveys via phone and online modes.
  
  
• We provide you the expertise of statisticians and psychometricians who specialize in surveys for schools included as part of one low annual subscription to our platform.
  
  
• We fully train and support all your Central Office staff as well as Site Administrators.