SY14-15 School Survey Administration Guidance

Transcription

1 SY14-15 School Administration Guidance The annual School is an important component of City Schools efforts to monitor and improve the quality of the learning environment in Baltimore City s public schools. City Schools has developed surveys for students in grades 3-12, for school-based professional and paraprofessional staff and for parents of students in Prek-12 to obtain their impressions of their school and teachers. results are used to inform individual School Performance Plans, school budgets, School Progress Reports, City Schools Master Plan, and the School Comprehensive Safety Plan. The School is also a part of the Learning Environment category within the School Performance Measure.The School Performance Measure is currently part of the evaluation system for both teachers and principals, although the inclusion of the measure may be impacted by whether or not Maryland is granted a waiver (for more information on the waiver see For more details about the School Performance Measure, please visit An extensive revision to the annual School was undertaken in Fall 2012 in an effort to improve the usefulness of the data gathered from the survey, and to improve administration processes with the goal of achieving higher response rates. Steps were also taken at the close of the SY12-13 survey administration to improve the quality and usefulness of the survey results shared with schools and district offices. Paper Materials: The following paper survey materials will be shipped to your school directly from Scantron via UPS and should arrive on January 7. Please alert your office staff that survey materials should arrive in a single shipment that may include multiple packages. Each package will be clearly marked with a bright orange label affixed to the outside. Please instruct staff not to refuse delivery of these packages, and to inform the Principal and immediately when the boxes have been received. The following items will be included in your shipment: a. forms for three different surveys: i. for students in grades 3-5 ii. for students in grades 6-12 iii. for parents of students in PreK-12. (The quantities provided are based on the number of students enrolled at your school. Spanish versions of parent and student surveys are included if that is appropriate for your school. There are no paper forms for the staff survey as this will be completed online.) b. Postage-paid return envelopes: A postage-paid return envelope is included for each parent in the school. Return envelopes should be sent home along with the survey to parents. c. Instructions for Teachers: These instructions should be distributed to all classroom teachers. If your school has not received its shipment of survey materials by close of business on January 13, the principal or survey coordinator should contact the Office of Achievement and Accountability by or phone at

2 ADMINISTRATION School for Parents: a. Beginning January 12, 2015, the parent version of the School should be sent home with all students (PreK-12). b. Parents will be contacted via Global Connect call on January 22 and asked whether they have received a School. If parents have not received a survey, one will be mailed to them from the district office. c. At the top of the survey are directions for parents that encourage them to complete the survey on paper or online, and return the survey by mail in the enclosed postage-paid envelope, to the school, or to submit it online. d. If parents opt to return their survey to their child s school, the surveys should be returned to a designated location in the main office (e.g., drop box), or collected by a school representative or an organized parent group or community-based organization (CBO) if the school has this type of team between January 12 and February 20. e. The link to the electronic version of the parent survey is provided on the paper survey. Schools can also share the link to the survey with their parent community through any school-wide communications. Please note that the link will not become active until January 12. The link is: f. The electronic version of the parent survey is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Nepali, and Spanish g. City Schools Office of Communications will encourage responses to the School for parents through various means, including flyers, the Family Menu, Twitter, school and district websites and other tools. h. Schools should also encourage parents in various ways (e.g. phone calls, s, meetings, flyers) to complete and return the survey by one of the methods described above by February 27, School for Students: The student survey will be available both in paper form and online. Schools can decide whether to participate in the online administration of the survey and to what extent (e.g., the whole school, select classrooms, only students needing the alternate languages). Please note that the paper version of the student survey is only available in English and Spanish whereas the online version of the survey is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Nepali, and Spanish. Below you will find guidance on both the paper and online administrations of the student survey. Please note that each student should only participate in one form of survey administration, not both. a. Paper Administration: i. Please designate a specific date or dates between January 12 and February 20 for school-wide administration of the School. ii. All students in grades 3-12 should complete this survey only once. iii. Immediately after the school-wide administration, all completed surveys should be delivered to the survey coordinator for return to OAA. iv. If a student has an IEP that provides accommodations for reading, these same accommodations should be provided to the student during survey administration.

3 v. If students are absent during survey administration, please ask teachers to provide opportunities for these students to take the survey during breaks from instruction. vi. All completed surveys should be returned to the survey coordinator or principal by February 20 for return to OAA by February 27. vii. PLEASE RETURN THE COMPLETED SURVEYS IN THE PACKAGES IN WHICH YOU RECEIVED THEM. PLEASE DO NOT USE POSTAGE-PAID PARENT SURVEY ENVELOPES TO RETURN STUDENT SURVEYS, as this may lead to a delay in form processing. b. Online Administration: i. Please consult with your school community to determine whether the whole school or certain grades at the school should participate in the electronic administration of the survey. ii. If you decide to conduct some or all of the student survey administration online, we encourage you to develop a schedule that gives individual classes about 45 minutes in your school s computer lab between January 12 and February 20 to complete the survey. iii. We recommend that you also schedule one or more make-up administrations in the computer lab for those students who are absent during the initial administration. iv. All online surveys must be completed by no later than February 27. v. Please note that the online survey is identical to the paper survey except for two additional questions/prompts that students will need to answer online that are not included on the paper survey. 1. The first prompt asks the student to choose what language they would like to complete the survey in by selecting one of the tabs above, and the options are English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Nepali, or Spanish. 2. The second question follows the question about what school the student attends, and asks the student to provide a unique username in order to complete the survey. This username should be a single word and can include numbers. Because this is an anonymous survey, please encourage students not to use their name as their username. vi. The links to the student survey are provided below and also provided to all teachers via the teacher instruction sheet. Teachers should provide these links to the students who are participating in the online survey administration. Please note that these links will not be active until January 12. Student, Grades 3-5: Student, Grades 6-12:

4 Returning Completed Student and Parent School s to District Office/Scantron: a. All completed student surveys should be addressed to Anne Lilly and returned to the Office of Achievement and Accountability (OAA), Room 203, 200 East North Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland in the packages in which they were shipped via interoffice mail, or in person by February 27. Please do not use postage-paid parent survey envelopes to return student surveys as this may lead to a delay in form processing. b. Please note that City Schools Chief Accountability Officer will be notified daily about the status of survey returns from each school. If the bulk of completed student surveys are not received by February 20, the Accountability Officer will contact the principal to determine why surveys have not been completed and received and to make arrangements to have the completed student surveys returned. c. If parents return surveys directly to the school, a representative from the school can either: i. Place the surveys in regular mail for return to Scantron if the surveys are already sealed in the postage-paid return envelopes; OR ii. Place the parent surveys in a larger envelope or box and return them to the OAA via interoffice mail or in person by February 27. School for Staff: All school-based professional and paraprofessional staff will receive an with a link to participate in this year s School online on January 5. The completion of the survey online will ensure staff anonymity, and prevent review of survey contents by others prior to the survey being submitted. The staff survey takes about 20 minutes to complete. All schoolbased staff including teachers, support staff, principals and assistant principals should participate. Teachers may wish to know that the use of an online survey, rather than a printed form, was planned collaboratively with the Baltimore Teachers Union. Instructions for completing the survey will be specified in the . Staff should complete a survey no later than February 27. STAFF SHOULD BE INSTRUCTED TO NOT FORWARD THE LINK IN THEIR TO ANY OTHER STAFF MEMBER.

5 Summary Calendar of School Events and Deadlines Date Responsibility Action Jan 5 OAA Staff version of the School opens. Jan 7 Scantron/OAA All student and parent survey forms arrive in schools Jan 10 Scantron/OAA Flyers promoting the parent version of the School will arrive in schools via school mail. Flyers should be distributed to parents as a reminder to parents to fill out the survey. Jan 12 Jan 13 Principal/ Principal/ Distribute parent and student survey materials to teachers with appropriate instructions; Remind staff to check their s for survey link and complete the survey. Contact OAA by or phone at if paper survey materials have not arrived at the school. Jan 13 Teacher Parent surveys sent home with students. Jan 12- Feb 27, Administrative Staff, Organized parent groups, CBOs Parents complete and return survey via one of the following methods: mail survey in postage paid envelope, return survey to designated staff or organized parent or community group at child s school, or complete the survey online. Jan 12- Feb 20 Teacher Teachers should have students complete the survey on the designated school day during the designated class period. Jan 22 Office of Global connect call to parents to assess if they received a survey. Engagement Feb 9- Feb 20 Teacher/ Teachers should administer the survey to students who were absent during the initial survey administration period. Jan 14- Feb 27 Completed paper student surveys should be returned to OAA via interoffice mail or in person. Feb 27 School Staff Deadline for submission of the online staff survey. Feb 27 Deadline for return of all completed parent surveys to OAA. Late April OAA Sharing of survey results with schools.

6 What Teachers Need to Know about the City Schools SY School Parent : On January 12, 2015, ALL STUDENTS should be given a parent survey, and a postage-paid return envelope to take home to their parent/caregiver. Please make sure that parents know that the surveys are to be returned by February 27. Parent surveys are also available electronically and the following link is printed on the paper surveys: Student : Paper Administration: ALL STUDENTS in grades 3-12 will complete the School on the day and class period designated by the Principal and between January 12 and February 21. Immediately after administering the survey to your students, please collect the completed surveys and deliver them to the Principal or, who will return the forms to the Office of Achievement and Accountability (OAA). The goal is to have all students participate in the survey. If students are absent when the survey is administered, please provide an opportunity for these students to take the survey during a break from instruction. The remaining completed surveys should be returned to the or Principal by February 21 so they can be returned to OAA by the deadline, February 27. Online Administration: The student versions (grades 3-5 & grades 6-12) of the School are also available electronically. If you would like to administer the student survey to your class electronically, please collaborate with the to set this up. Your class will need a 45 minute block of time between January 12 and February 21 in your school s computer lab to complete the survey. If students are absent during the electronic administration, please schedule an alternate time in the computer lab for these students to complete the survey. All online surveys must be completed by no later than February 27. There will be two additional questions that students will need to answer online that are not included on the paper survey. The first question asks the student to choose the language in which they would like to complete the survey. Students can choose from English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Nepali, or Spanish. After identifying their school, students are asked the second additional question in which students provide a unique username to complete the survey. This username should be a single word and can include numbers. Because this is an anonymous survey, please encourage students not to use their name as their username. Student link, Grades 3-5: Student link, Grades 6-12: Staff : The staff survey will be administered electronically. ALL STAFF should receive a link to the survey via on January 5, Instructions for completing the survey will be included in the with the survey link. Each staff member s survey link is unique, which ensures staff anonymity and prevents other individuals from reviewing a staff member s survey responses prior to submission. All staff should complete and submit their surveys by February 27. Please contact the Office of Achievement and Accountability or at (410) with questions or concerns related to the School.