High school survey results unveiled

Thousands of students, staff members and parents who make up the Valley Stream Central High School District community voiced their opinions about the district’s teaching, learning and overall school climate in a survey that was administered in March and April. Now, the results are in.

Superintendent Dr. Bill Heidenreich said that he wasn’t surprised by the results, although there were things he was happy to see, as well as numbers he’d like to see improved.

Heidenreich said there seems to be a disconnect in how students learn and how teachers teach. “I think today kids are so used to easy and fast access to information, between texting, the Internet, video,” he said. “What impact, if any, does that have on a student’s attention span and what impact does that have on learning? What can we do as a teaching staff to make school more engaging for students?” Heidenreich added that the district’s administrators and faculty would focus a lot of attention on that issue during the upcoming school year.

When asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement “I feel safe at school,” only 49 to 51 percent of students at three of the four schools in the district said they feel safe. In comparison, 82 percent of staff members agreed with the statement “I feel safe at work.”

Heidenreich said that each of the four schools are statistically safe places to study and work, but the student body’s perception is something he plans on addressing. The district is implementing the Dignity for All Students Act in the upcoming school year where each school will have a dignity coordinator who will be trained to counsel students in order to help them feel safe.

District administrators and Board of Education members started discussing the idea of a climate survey in November. Heidenreich was asked to find out about surveys in a variety of school districts and landed on the National Center for School Leadership survey, which he and the board then decided to pursue. The NCSL results allow the district administrators to compare their results to other districts on a national level.

Participants answered questions based on a five-point scale, ranging from highly satisfied to extremely dissatisfied. Students, teachers and parents rated their satisfaction level with items including communication, school pride, discipline and respect.

The district did score very well in the school pride category, which was something the administrators were happy to see. “Everybody is very proud of the school and the job that we do for students,” said Dr. Tracey Nekulak, assistant superintendent for personnel and administration, “and that’s really important to have the people working for the organization to be proud of the mission that we’re doing.”

Heidenreich added that commitment from students, faculty and parents is a big part of a successful school atmosphere. “A lot of the research out there shows that if parents, students and staff members are happy and actively engaged in their school, then that school is going to do well academically,” he said.

Another aspect that Heidenreich and his staff will focus on is communicating with parents in the district more efficiently. He said that more teachers are creating websites to post what is going on in their classrooms for students and parents to use. Also, Heidenreich encouraged parents to sign up for eSchoolData so they can receive emails from the district.

“I tended to focus more on where we can improve because if we’re doing well it’s wonderful and we should celebrate that success, but we’re not going to spend as much time on it,” Heidenreich said. “We’re going to focus our energies on where we can do better.”

More than 300 staff members took the survey in addition to 4,200 students and 444 parents. Prior to the survey being administered, Heidenreich was concerned that the parental participation in the survey would be low. Of the parents who did take the time to complete the survey, he said, the district will carefully review their answers, although the sample size is small.

Administrators and board members have received copies of the results and will look to acknowledge the areas that need improvement during the upcoming school year. Heidenreich plans to recommend conducting another climate survey in two to three years to see how the district adjusted.

“My feeling is that if you’re truly committed to continual improvement, you can’t do something as a one-shot deal,” he said. “You have to do it and then you have to implement a plan or program and then you have to revisit it to see what the changes are.”