Dissecting the MSIP 6 Survey with David Haug and Tina Basler

Embark on an exploratory mission as David Haug and the remarkable Tina Basler join forces to dissect the MSIP 6 survey findings, revealing a tapestry of character and collaboration that defines our school district. Together, we look beyond mere academic achievement to celebrate our collective Character Ed Certification, a testament to the profound commitment to shaping lives with integrity. The insights gained from our time at LACE Academy and experiences with Character Plus have been instrumental, fostering a community where service and character development are not just encouraged but lived daily.

This episode unravels the complexities of educational engagement in a post-COVID era, guided by the voices of those at the heart of our schools – students, parents, and staff. We shine a spotlight on the intricacies of parent participation, navigating the challenges of safety measures while sustaining their invaluable involvement. With an eye on fostering a sense of belonging for our dedicated staff, we discuss how the district's nurturing atmosphere reflects in the survey's positive feedback. Moreover, we confront the arduous task of defining long-term success in education, recognizing the necessity of cultivating a culture that champions growth over grades.

Concluding our dialogue, we delve into the crucial facets of student respect and relationships, addressing data that calls for a renewed focus on fostering mutual understanding and connection among peers. The episode culminates in a reflection on our administrative team's dynamics, where humility and collaboration are not mere concepts but practices embodied in our daily endeavors to enrich the lives of our students. With heartfelt gratitude to our listeners, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the welfare of the young minds we're privileged to guide. Join us in this episode for an enriching conversation that promises to leave you inspired and invested in the future of education.

Transcript

David Haug: 0:06

I'm David Haug, Superintendent of Jefferson R-7 School District, and I'm joined today by Mrs. Tina Basler, Plattin Elementary Principal. Just want to make a quick note of what we're doing here. Sometimes we ask our students and our staff and our parents to do surveys. We want to do a be better at getting that information back to you. So in the fall around late September, early October, we did an MSIP 6 survey and that's really what we're here today to discuss the results of that and kind of give you an idea and insight on how we go about that process. And that's where Mrs. Basler joins us. First of all, we've been working together for 13 years.

David Haug: 0:43

The majority of that I've been at the high school always been impressed by what Mrs. Basler's done at the Plattin Elementary, but the last two years, having seen how they function, she does an amazing job with that building. I think it speaks to education. When you have principles specifically building principles that are in a district for a long time, the great things that happen. She's a shining example of that. We are fortunate to be joined by you today and you're a wonderful advocate for children and sometimes it's one thing to be out there greeting them and doing all the things that people say, oh, you're having great relationships. But today we get a glimpse behind the scenes of what makes you really good at what you do, and that's looking at data, looking at things in a certain way, really for the benefit of children at all times. I appreciate what you do there. Thank you.

David Haug: 1:30

You and I both attended the LACE Academy, which is sort of a character education. It's a process that you do over 12 months. I enjoy the process. I know you enjoy the process. Sadly it was a long time ago. For us it's been a lot of years. But we've also developed a great relationship and you've spearheaded that over time with Character Plus. So we kind of outline, maybe just generally, the Character Plus relationship with the district.

Tina Basler: 1:55

Yes, they're a great partner to work with. We've worked with them. I mean probably 20 years now. Yeah, probably 15 years. 15, 20 years.

David Haug: 2:10

That, I would guess, probably seeds before, that I'm guessing.

Tina Basler: 2:15

And we actually have all of our staff Character Ed Certified. So that's a process that they go through, with three-day training to become Character Ed Certified and just learn the why and the how behind how to implement character education and what you do in the school building. And they provide those services to us. They provide more training opportunities for us. We were able to partner with them back in 2012 when we became a national school character, a state school character, a national school character. They kind of led us down that path and trained us in that model. We're able to go.

Tina Basler: 2:53

One thing they did back in that day and age they used to allow us to go to other buildings and see their character education program in action and that really opened the eyes to us of what we could bring back to our building. So I know when we started doing that and going into some of those schools that were already recognized as schools of character, we were able to bring back so many ideas and so many things to make it our own back at Plattin Primary and then that led to I have actually people named kind of the district character leader, and so then we were able to spread that into our other buildings. So some of the service opportunities that we've done, not only at the Primary building, with like our Saint Jude's run and we did a heart month one year for heart babies that's also led to the high school doing a lot of service opportunities, taking it to Telegraph and Danby.

David Haug: 3:49

We've really expanded that over the years, kind of the way I see it is that I think generally in education you're hiring great people. They're just good people. The character plus and some other avenues too it's sort of like you get this trying to accumulate a toolkit of how to connect not only what your strengths are, but then, looking at it from a different angle and I think that maybe summarizes Character Plus is that they've given us so many things we can add to our toolkit. So there's kind of a natural transition here. So the MSIP 6 survey is required through the process, and I think there's a lot of things as part of MSIP 6 that are very healthy, and I think this is part of it.

David Haug: 4:31

We kind of took the approach while we had the resources to and to do the survey, you could create your own, you could use the DESI model or you could get an outside vendor, and it just made sense for us to partner with character plus, because they also sat down with this to look at the data in an unbiased manner at the end of it. And that's Mrs. Basler and I sat with them about two months ago and that's kind of the summation here. This was actually presented to the board in December and we just want to share it with our community. The last part of it. What I admire about Mrs. Basler and really that we've got great principles and some really good leaders in our district.

David Haug: 5:11

Sometimes the tough part looking at data is it maybe shows some weaknesses that you have, and I've just noticed over the years some people take that very personal and try to defend maybe why it is like that, Mrs. Basler and our other principals. They do an amazing job of just looking at the data for what it is and saying, okay, we do have some strengths here. Maybe here's some holes that we need to work on. And that's really how you want to approach data. Anything to add to that, Because I think you do a great job of that.

Tina Basler: 5:39

No, I agree with that.

David Haug: 5:41

Perfect, we'll roll in right into this the first part of this. You will receive this document, this memo, as part of this push out for your review. Essentially, the state required us to submit back three items strength and opportunities for growth. We actually put five on there. We wanted to go a little bit deeper with it. We had a great conversation, but kind of the first one this actually the first one jumped out when you and I were meeting with Character Plus. Kind of talk about the first one strength that we have and how it kind of jumped out at everybody.

Tina Basler: 6:17

Yeah, Nicole really brought it to our attention, our character rep and told us like this was a huge strength to be at. Looking at the district as a whole, we had 97% at the K through five level and 93% at the six through 12 level. That's parents, staff, students that all agree or strongly agree that it's a priority of Jefferson R-7 to create a positive learning environment. So you know we're not just looking at the academics. We're looking at creating that environment that leads to higher academics, and that's what she pointed out to us.

David Haug: 6:50

Yeah, and I think you and I look at that as a tremendous compliment and the district really should ever from top to bottom. But I think as practitioners of data, you look at that and say, okay, what, why is it like that and what do we do to protect that? So it's not just looking at the things that maybe come up a little bit negative or, in some people's eyes, kind of a gap, but also looking at what you're doing well and trying to protect what you're doing well, and that's really pulling the emotion out of it and saying, okay, that's great, but why is it like that? So that's one of the ways we look at it and approach it. So, in general, the first responses to the survey we thought were very healthy. On the flip side, it's also maybe a weakness. We'll get to that in a minute. But go ahead and go kind of go through the numbers.

Tina Basler: 7:29

Yeah, so at the student level, and just students, grades three through 12, were surveyed, we had 502 students complete that survey. For parents we were sitting at 286. And for staff we were at 110. So nearly probably our highest number there, percentage wise, is staff, I'm imagining.

David Haug: 7:48

Yeah, probably put me on the spot. Usually you break that stuff down, but I would. What I looked at it as a glimpse was you know you have about 1000 kids in the district. A little over 50% completed the survey without if you look at the total number, but that doesn't count anybody at Plattin Elementary. So you're kind of down on that 750 range.

David Haug: 8:09

I think we can do better but I think it was a great start. I think it's the simple way to look at that and you'll see, on one of our weaknesses we're gonna talk about trying to engage that. So if you don't take anything else today, from this next year when you see the survey, we do look at this. It does mean something to us and if you would build out, we are looking at it and we're gonna do a better job of getting it back to you. So a parent sense of involvement I think a lot of questions came up over COVID. I know how things felt for us before COVID with our parents that a lot of parent involvement, very healthy environment. COVID was a tough time for everybody. But to see these numbers coming out of COVID and for our first survey, if you wanna talk about parent sense of involvement, yes, I kind of pointed this one out.

Tina Basler: 8:55

I'm feeling that this was a high number in comparison, like you said, to our post COVID times right now, and then also just the safety features that we've had to implement over the last 10 years or become more strict upon visitors in the building and things like that. So I've always been concerned, just in my tenure as principal, that parent involvement. Maybe it, from the parent's viewpoint, feels less because we don't have our doors wide open, we can't just walk into the school building anymore. We don't have all of our parents gathering in our foyer at the end of the day for the last 20 minutes waiting for the kids to be released, like we did 10 years ago. It really has changed a lot.

Tina Basler: 9:35

But to see those numbers, they were nearly at 80%. I think that's very, very strong and I think it's very positive that at the K through five level we were 78.6% but at the six through 12 level we were 78.9%. So to be steady throughout that entire career as a student or whatever, and as parents of students, I have high schoolers and I don't feel involved at all at my kids high school. You just you don't get those letters, you don't get the notes as often or whatever. You rely on the students to relay that information a lot of times and so to see that number at the six through 12 level still at or above where we're at at the elementary level. I think this week's very highly of our both parents involvement and the way that our staff is engaging our parents.

David Haug: 10:25

Yeah, that's again. We ask ourselves why? Why are those numbers consistent? We look not only to protect it but improve it. I mean, I look at 78 on both of them and you wanna push that higher. I think a big part of that, from my perspective as a former high school principal, was the student led conferences. When those came in, not only do we have a high turnout, but it is related to college career planning and that model can carry out anytime during the year and it's not just that one moment when you say, okay, what are you gonna do. It's being implemented as eighth grade and then moving all the way through their high school career. So we look at that and say we need to make sure we strengthen that and keep doing that. But what else can we do to engage our parents? Absolutely. And the last one is the staff. I'm sorry, the last one with actual data, like specific data as to what staff sense of belonging.

Tina Basler: 11:15

Yeah, I felt like this one was very strong too. This jumped out to me when I was looking at my platin primary numbers. Many of you know I've been in the district for 25 years now and it's always a goal of mine also to make my staff feel at home. We spend most of our days here and so to feel that sense of belonging here and so have high retention as well, and so to see that number at 81% at the K through five level I thought was very high and the six through 12 levels at 76.5%. So staff definitely feel that sense of belonging here. They feel that it is somewhere that they want to be every day and I think that speaks to what they can give your kids.

David Haug: 11:56

I know what we attempt to do here and I know it doesn't always resonate, but I think one of the difficult things whether you're a politician, whether you're in education, whether you're parent, how do you measure successful environments when really the goal is to have the children that leave our school district good when they're 25 years old, when they're 30 years old?

David Haug: 12:18

So you can't really look ahead and measure that success. And so I know we spend a lot of time and I hope this is resonating is that we don't put every value in a test score or MSIP points, because those, those standards, the state standards, change frequently every so many years. So we try to develop a culture about and I think that's where it comes up with our mission statement and portion of a graduate that we put together. You're going to see that more and more as we go along here as a leadership team. But really trying to create that environment for our staff and our staff is so vitally important on a daily basis with our kids. So we understand that, we value that and that's something we really try to pay attention to. And then the last one, and we'll talk about it here a little bit on the other side, because when it's not when this is not as those kind of things we're seeing, but the majority of the answers. A lot of the staff and parents were aligned in their answers.

Tina Basler: 13:09

Yes, yeah, I know we just went over this as a, as a group, with my Plattin Primary teachers and like that parents sense of involvement, that was one thing we pointed out. The parents feel involved and we feel that we're involving them too. So those numbers were steady. So that's. I think that's very highly.

David Haug: 13:25

And on the flip side, when you have that positive data point to look at, where you're looking at a lot of consistency, it's. It's nice to be able to see those holes at times, because there were some answers that did not align as we had seen all the way through. So the first one was the answers to the question and this is now these opportunities for growth weaknesses, if you will. We just approach it like okay, ask why, why it's like this and what can we do to improve it. But the first one really stemmed around the question. That was I feel comfortable speaking up when I have a question or concern, and again that breaks out into elementary staff, parents and students, and then six through 12. I think the findings were a little bit interesting there.

Tina Basler: 14:07

Yeah, the question was that students feel comfortable to speak up and share their questions or concerns and at the elementary level the students were at 65% agree or strongly agree that they feel you know the ability to speak up and avoid those concerns or questions, but the staff was at 85% and our parents were at 79%. So I think that's there that the scrappancy that you talked about, that we'd want to those perceptions to be more similar than what we're seeing there. It was a little bit closer at the upper elementary or upper high school level, the six through 12 grade level they were at 66% of students feel comfortable speaking up and our staff was at 72% agree with that and parents were at 63. So much more consistent there. So we definitely need to ask those questions at the elementary level. You know, why aren't students feeling comfortable speaking up? Do they not feel willing to take those risks to ask questions in front of their peers, those types of things? I think we just want to have rich discussions as a staff with that.

David Haug: 15:11

Yeah, I felt was interesting to that, the elementary student and the 60 trust is were almost identical 65 and 66. The other big question there is what can we do for our students in general, if it's, if it's two thirds across the district, what can we do to increase that up, to make that percentage of all on its own? But I think that was the one thing that stood out, stood out to everybody involved right away. The second one was the gap between parents on this one specifically. But the question stemmed around the school shares the results of the culture and climate surveys, such as this one with me. We're taking data in but we're not necessarily pushing it back out and go ahead and talk about that.

Tina Basler: 15:52

Yeah, our parents were at 65% agree, we strongly agree with that and 42% at the six through 12 level. So, as I stated to the Board of Education, we were expecting this number to be low. I actually expected it to be lower than what it's showing here, because this is this was really the first time that we did a formal survey around this topic from the K through 12 level. I know in the past, when we were going through the School of Character, we were pushing out some surveys at the primary building, but to have a K through 12 survey like this, this was our first time. So definitely it's not something that we've shared before because we haven't done it before. So I definitely anticipate this number to grow in the upcoming years as we share it in this way and in other formats with you.

David Haug: 16:38

Yes, and I think that's the again. If I could reiterate that when we send this out, our hope is that you're trusting us with that information. It is confidential. There's no names attached to it. That's why we like the unbiased part of it and also kind of good working with Character Plus on the review of it. But when you see those surveys, we hope that you do take the time to fill them out, because it does help us. This has been a great service to us.

David Haug: 17:01

The last opportunity here really centered around some actual data that we looked at, and this is kind of an eye-opener for me and I think that it's really caused us to kind of take a step back and say, okay, how can we really improve this one? And that is, students respect each other and get along with each other, and to that degree you don't know in a child's mind well, I'm gonna have to get along with this one person and that they're putting no to it. But really the reality is because one of the things I always talk about we used RTI is that if you're outside that 5%, that 20%, then you've got an issue. But sometimes the negative stuff in our lives kind of overwhelms the good things that are going on. So we wanna pay attention to that. But the numbers here were interesting and we definitely this is something we really wanna focus on, so kind of take us through that.

Tina Basler: 17:46

Yeah, like he said, the question was students respect each other and get along with each other, and at the three through five building they were at 45% agree or strongly agree and at the six through 12 level the students were at 47% agreeing or strongly agreeing with that, so under 50%.

Tina Basler: 18:04

I see that as something we need to talk about as a concern. Even I'd wanna ask more questions, I guess, because the question wasn't do you feel respected? The question is do students respect each other and get along with each other? So I think there's a couple ways to look at it.

Tina Basler: 18:21

You could look at it at me saying that I'm not respected, but you could also be me as a bystander saying I'm seeing other kids not respecting other children or other students, and I mean through the models that we're pushing, I know, at the elementary level and going up into the Danby building and the high school, the B3 model be a better bystander. That's definitely something we wanna empower our kids to feel courage, to step up when students aren't respecting each other and to take action and to say that's not right, the way you're treating them is not right. You need to stop and not just be a bystander but to be a better bystander, and so that fits definitely along with what we are doing. I think we just need to ask more questions of students around this topic to pinpoint where is this happening, who is this happening to, how frequent is this disrespect happening and how can we improve upon it?

David Haug: 19:15

So and I know, listen, this business. Sometimes you're just inundated with data A lot of testing data, a lot of APR data, a lot of you know in my world now financial data, but sometimes a survey like this is the most critical thing. I've always had a belief I know Mrs. Basler feels the same way that really if you don't have the culture in your building, where it is.

David Haug: 19:38

Listen, at the high school you take 320 kids and 25 to 30 staff members. You're going to have conflicts. You can't get around it. It's going to happen, but are there ways to resolve those that are respectful? Is the culture every day that I feel like I'm a part of it? We see a lot of evidence that that does exist in our district, but how can we get better? I think this is a great question and you got a glimpse of what I admire about Mrs. Basler, which he comes in and says you need to dig a little deeper into that question as to why it was. Is it something they're observing or is it happening to them? Those are simple places you start from. We just want to share that with you and the constituents. Last couple here these are kind of vague on some level, but the participation numbers we had it as a strength. We also see it as an opportunity. I would like to see it closer to. Of the 750-ish kids that are eligible, I'd like to see around 700 take it.

Tina Basler: 20:27

Oh, for sure.

David Haug: 20:29

And then of the parents. I think there's around 250 or so. I would like to see that number double at minimum. And so that's one reason we're doing this is that when you do see this information that we are taking it, we do take it very seriously. Then also, lastly, a lot of focus, and I'll let you speak to this. When you look at data, pull the emotion out and, honestly, sometimes I have to look at it, I have to kind of put it down for a minute because questions start popping up right away. Put it down, and sometimes it takes a day or two to kind of sift through it. But generally, what are you looking for when you're looking at data?

Tina Basler: 21:02

with that last statement there, yeah, I think it's just really you're giving. When we look at data at the primary building, I know, with my teachers and everything, I like to give opportunities for everyone to look at it separately, in isolation or whatever on your own and then come together to dive into it, because the way you might look at data could be totally different than the way I look at it. So, just taking some time to look at it separately and then coming together, that's where you really have those rich discussions. Like you said, put the emotions aside. It's nothing personal. It's really about what the data can tell us and how we can grow from it. Whether you're looking at student achievement data or something like this, like a character education survey, it's how can we grow, how can we, what can we learn from it and how can we grow. I think that's always our goal from any kind of data.

David Haug: 21:50

And I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you say to look at it differently and allow people to get their own perspectives.

Tina Basler: 21:57

That is.

David Haug: 21:58

That's what I think we're doing very well right now as an administrative team is that I don't think anybody's coming into a meeting with an agenda to say this is telling us this. We have to do that. There's just a lot of why, and sometimes the questions aren't getting answered in one meeting or we're doing prep work ahead of time so that we show up. We've already looked at it and there's no surprises and no agenda. The simple agenda is what are we doing on the big picture? What are we doing every day to create opportunities for kids, to make their lives better? And it takes them some. Being humble and I think that's what really looking at data has to be at times is really just this humility to say, you know, we're just not very good here. Why? What can we do to improve? And then just say, okay, let's fix it, let's do the very best we can for kids. So anything else to add before we shut this down?

Tina Basler: 22:52

I don't think so. Thank you for everyone watching. I appreciate it if you're getting this information.

David Haug: 22:56

Yeah, appreciate it, take care, Bye-bye.