The Nest Podcast
The official podcast of the Jefferson R-VII School District.
The Nest Podcast
Building Stronger Communities: Survey Insights from Jefferson R-VII
Our Climate and Culture Survey results show strong participation with 339 parent responses, 120 staff responses, and over 500 student responses to guide our continuous improvement plan. We're sharing key strengths and opportunities for growth based on this valuable feedback.
• 85% of students agree teachers and adults treat them with respect
• Students' sense of belonging remains consistent across transitional grades (3rd, 6th, 9th)
• Only 38% of students feel their peers get along with one another
• Student-to-student relationships improve with age (23% positive at Telegraph, 55% at high school)
• 49% of students believe their peers respect teachers, while staff perception is higher at 58%
• Morning meetings at Telegraph Elementary are successfully building community through daily gatherings
• We'll focus on expanding opportunities for student connections and reinforcing our "Be a Better Bystander" program
We're very proud of our strengths and committed to addressing areas for growth. Your feedback plays a huge role in helping us get better, so thank you to everyone who participated in the surveys.
Hi, jefferson. I'm Darren Schaefer. I'm the Executive Director of Administrative Services, joined today by Mrs Bosler Platten, primary Principal. We're meeting with you today to go over results from our Climate and Culture Survey, which is part of MCIP 6, and this feedback helps guide our continuous improvement plan plan. Overall, our participation was great this year. We had over 339 responses from our parents, staff was at 120, and over 500 students also participated in the survey.
Speaker 2:Mrs Bosler, is going to review our strengths and opportunities for growth. Hi, I just wanted to let everyone know, first of all, that yes, our participation was up from last year greatly in all of our stakeholders. So our students were up, our parents were up and our staff was up. I think for parents, that's the biggest shout out to all of you for participating in that. We went from 286 participants last year to 339 this year, which is great growth. So hopefully we can continue to see more parents participate in this because your feedback is great growth. So hopefully we can continue to see more parents participate in this because your feedback is important to us. We do our best to make sure that all of our staff participate, so we kind of don't really give them an option. If we see that there's a large group that didn't participate, we kind of reach out to them and make them do it, and we try to do the same thing with our students as well. So we're doing a good job hitting those areas. But, of course, your participation is voluntary. But it is very important to us to know how your students are coming home. Your children are coming home and perceiving the culture and climate of the school. We are actually going to be linking the total district results to this podcast as well. That way you can take a look at the results yourself to see exactly the data that's there. Overall, I will say our culture and climate as a district is very strong.
Speaker 2:We are able to see results building by building. So at Platten we don't get student surveys. We don't do student surveys because our kids aren't able to fully read yet and things like that. So we don't do student surveys. Our kids, you know, aren't able to fully read yet and things like that, so we don't do student surveys. But our student surveys start as early as the third grade, going up to the 12th grade, and then you know our staff is all surveyed every building. So we get results building by building, building specific. And then we get an elementary, so a K through 5 survey results kind of grouped together, and then 6 through 12. And then of course, dmv and the high school are separated as well for each building principal and each staff to look over and see what areas of strength that they might find and what opportunities for growth that they see.
Speaker 2:But today I'm just going to focus on the district results which we're sharing with you and some areas of strength and opportunities for growth that we saw with that. So one of the areas of strength that I saw when looking over the results was there's a question for students that teachers and adults at this school treat me with respect and overwhelmingly we had 85% of our students agree or strongly agree that you know they are treated with respect by their teachers and adults at the school. So I felt like that was very positive, as you know, to know, as staff members, that our students see that we, you know, are treating with them with respect and they're feeling that as well. Another thing that I looked at, and I particularly was kind of looking for this information because I know, as a district, a lot of times we worry that our buildings are silos. You know, when we don't want to operate as silos, we want to operate as a continuous district. We want to have things that you know transfer from building to building and that we're aligned.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes we worry a lot about our students that they may feel when they go into a new building that they may feel a little bit different or that they're not accepted as easily or, you know, they are learning new staff all those things that it's a hard transition for them.
Speaker 2:So we work hard. Darren has provided time for us this year to make sure that we had time for you know, like the third grade teachers, to talk with the second grade teachers about all the students that are transitioning. We do that from Danby to the high school. We do that from Telegraph to Danby as well. So I particularly was looking at one particular area where students are noting about their sense of belonging and then their sense of community, particularly looking at, like the third grade and the sixth grade and the ninth grade to see if they felt that sense of belonging and sense of community equal to the other grade levels, and I found that it was very consistent. So I thought that that was very positive and speaks highly of our transition meetings that you allow for us and speaks highly of the transitions you know and, hopefully, avoidance of that silo effect that we have at our buildings.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's great information.
Speaker 2:And then, like we hit on already, the participation numbers. So thank you for those having those up. So opportunities for growth we're just again touching on this briefly, we don't want to keep you too long, but opportunities for growth. One question that jumped out at me was a question that was posed to students and it was the students were asked students at my school get along with one another and as a whole district only 38% agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. And what kind of made me a little uneasy was that 42% neither agree or disagree. So it's kind of like that I always think agree or neither agree or disagree is kind of like that meh, feeling Like you just were like, eh, you know, I don't really know if I agree with that or disagree. I'm just kind of caught in the middle and I think as a staff we would definitely want to see a high number of students agreeing with this statement that students at my school get along with one another.
Speaker 2:So to break it down for you, we did find that as students aged or got a little bit older that they did feel that they were getting along with each other better. So Telegraph recorded only 23% agree or strongly agree with that statement, danby was at 39% and the high school was at 55%. So I know, you know, I know as students go to Telegraph and they're starting to become more independent and learn their interests more, you know it is a hard transitional grade. You know those little preteen years or whatever, and you know you and I may have liked something as second graders together and then now all of a sudden you're into you and I may have liked something as second graders together and then now all of a sudden you're into something and I'm not into that anymore. So I know that divide actually kind of starts to happen in that grade or those grade levels.
Speaker 2:But I think it's definitely something that we need to work with our students more on that. We need to, you know, maybe have some additional surveys to ask them like what are they feeling? I think there's opportunity to have more student groups possibly involved. I know Telegraph just has like choir or whatever, but maybe some opportunities for some after-school activities We've got, of course, the Blue Jay Bombers, things like that but just looking for opportunities for students to find more connections with each other and I think that's the biggest, most important part is when you find that you do have connections with somebody that you didn't think you did, then you just kind of have that sense of feeling that you're getting along better with them, absolutely, and you're not creating cliques or things like that or excluding people, and that's really what we want our students to feel. You don't have to be best friends with each other, but we do need to treat each other with respect and get along.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. One of the things that I really appreciate down at Telegraph that I see Ms Watson doing is her morning meetings. Yes, and it's building wide. So 3 through 5, they're in the gym in the morning with each other. They boost each other up, they play games. I with each other, they boost each other up, they play games. I think every Friday there's a dance party, yeah, and it just really makes that cohesive process of team. It's a community and it's a really neat process yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. I know she does do that daily and so just building on those opportunities having more class meetings, you know, I think is an opportunity for any of those things to you know, grow or give that sense of community to our getting along with one another, allow that to grow. So we'll focus on that for next year and hopefully see that number go up in all of our buildings Another opportunity for growth. I noticed that the JHS numbers, their student participation numbers, were down this year. So I know we've already talked to Alex about just finding ways to ensure you know whether it's a you were more familiar with the high school schedule whether it's an advisory time or something like that that it is getting hit on in every classroom at the same time, same day, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Correct. Yeah, there's a lot going on at the high school. They have their during advisory. There's many clubs that are happening and going on, different class meetings, students are doing their college courses, so it is a little difficult to get everyone sat down and log into the survey, but it's definitely something we can look into for next year.
Speaker 2:On improving I think that's an easy fix.
Speaker 2:So that's a good one to address and find the solution to. And then the last one, an opportunity again for growth, is the question was posed students at this school respect their teacher. So, district-wide showed, 49% of students agree or strongly agree with this statement, 50% at the 6-12 level and 48% at the 3-5 level. So very consistent there. But we did note that staff perception was a little higher at 58%. But I still think it's an area that we can work on. I'd love to see everyone kind of over that 60%, you know, even closer to 70%. Looking at the culture that you'll see reflected in the overall survey results, I think we can get that number higher. So it's really, you know, I think this is where a lot of what we talk about with that, mr Marshall, had started and that we continue to reinforce as a district the B3, be a better bystander.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of this comes into play here because really, if students are feeling like their peers aren't respecting their teachers, like that's where you have to step up as a student, you know, have the courage to step up and say, hey, what you said to you know, mr Schaefer, or whatever, that wasn't right, that wasn't cool, dude, you know, don't do that kind of thing. So I know that it's hard for students to do, but that's what we teach, you know. We teach how to not just be a bystander but to be a better bystander, to step up, be courageous, to challenge a peer when maybe they're not treating a peer the way that you want to be treated, or they're not treating a teacher the way that they should be treated. So, um, I think, just continuing to focus on that, um, so that we can, you know, really work towards that mutual respect, because definitely, you know, the students are feeling the respect from the teachers, and so we need the students to also feel like they're giving the respect to the teachers as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, nicely said. Yeah, yeah, well, I want to thank miss Bosler. She works extremely hard on working with character plus on sending out these surveys, looking at our data and analyzing it. Thank you to everyone that participated in the surveys. We're very proud of our strengths. We're committed to addressing areas for growth, and your feedback plays a huge role in helping us get better. Is there there anything else that you would like to add, ms Bosler?
Speaker 2:No, I think that's it.
Speaker 1:All right Well, thank you for watching.
Speaker 2:Thank you.