I am delighted to report that today, DCSD has
launched a survey of all of its employees to solicit feedback on the four
pillars of our strategic plan: safety, choice, world-class education, and
system performance. This survey will help us provide a baseline of current
opinion so that we can understand how to improve in ways ranging from effective
communication to assisting teachers and building leaders in providing the best
education for kids.
This will be the first part of our effort to
gather opinions from parents, students, teachers, and citizens across the
district. Having worked on this effort for nearly eighteen months, I am pleased
to see it come to fruition, and look forward to using the results to drive
continuous improvement in our district.
Here are some questions that I have seen today
upon the survey's release. I hope that this will help begin to answer them, and
that the district community has productive conversations going forward.
What is the background on surveying
employees?
In the past, DCSD has surveyed teachers and
community members without substantial fidelity. Best practices for surveys
weren't followed, such as using a rigorous protocol to ensure that the right
respondents were taking them, nor were representative samples of the community
guaranteed. DCSD had the disastrous experience of failing to ask
demographic questions in its most recent survey. Although valuable
information came out of that survey that was used in a number of ways, the
district could not guarantee that its results represented the community
accurately.
In the summer of 2014, DCSD released an RFP for
a community survey. Several firms responded, with a variety of approaches to
the District's request. I was fortunate to be part of the staff review
process that looked over the packages and made recommendations about which to
employ. However, ultimately, disagreement about the recommendations, as well as
substantial cost, caused the majority of the board to choose not to take action with a survey
for this past fall, a year ago. (Note: no formal board action was taken.)
Although I was disappointed (you might
guess that I was in the minority on this issue), I continued to work with staff
and the superintendent to determine a path forward on gathering feedback.
What is this survey about?
This particular survey is for staff, by staff.
It is meant to gauge the current understanding of the district's strategic
plan. The questions fall into the four strategic plan buckets: safety, choice,
world-class education, and system performance. There are additional
questions about how employees feel about DCSD as a place to work, and around
communications.
Who created and is administering the survey?
The district solicited staff across several
departments for survey questions.
Data integrity is an extremely important part
of survey best practice. The questions are hosted on a third-party
survey platform that ensures that there are unique respondents. The survey is
anonymous--no demographic or employee data is solicited. Standard practices
have been employed to allow employees to remain anonymous while allowing data
to be aggregated into building-level indicators. No one outside the district
should be able to take the survey, and no one will be able to take the survey
more than once.
When will the survey be completed?
Employees have until November 20 to access and
finish the survey.
How will the results be used?
Understanding knowledge gaps is the first step
to making positive changes in the areas measured by the survey. The results
will be used to form an initial picture of the state of employee implementation
of the strategic plan. I am most interested in driving improvements as
we continue to gather feedback and learn how we can support staff
members.
So is this the whole result of the survey
process? Is this the only survey that will be given?
No, it is just the beginning. After discussing
survey approaches with staff, several paths forward emerged. Begin by measuring
staff understanding of the current strategic plan. Understand the baseline
viewpoints. Try again to work together as a board on a broader survey, perhaps
for parents, students, and/or community members. Come back to staff with
additional questions near the end of the year as we figure out what questions
staff members have, and where additional improvements are needed.
We should never be satisfied with where we are
at any given point. We must develop a more robust communications process and a
better feedback loop to improve our assessment of how we are doing. Today's
survey is a small part of that.
