If you have children attending Seattle Public Schools, you’ve likely received a phone call on Monday afternoon asking families to take a survey regarding the District’s Strategic Plan. Initially, the deadline was on May 31 but they’ve since extended it to Wednesday night, June 8 at 9:00pm.
Here’s the information regarding the survey from the SPS website:
The School District will be updating and adjusting the Strategic Plan with input from teachers, principals, parents, families, and members of our community. Please visit the following survey link to provide feedback:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SPS_Strategic_Plan_Survey_Spring_2011. The survey consists of 21 questions and will close at 9 p.m., Wednesday, June 8. Responses to the survey will remain confidential and anonymous. For questions about the survey, please email [email protected]. We appreciate your time and feedback.
I took a gander at the survey, fully intending to fill it out, but I was surprised by the nine open-ended questions ranging from “What current and anticipated opportunities should the school district take advantage of?” to “What can be done to improve the process for allocating funds for schools?” Reading it made me wonder how many families would actually take the time to write out thoughtful responses, and then I wondered how the district would handle culling through the wide variety of responses for each question. I do think it’s an opportunity to voice your concerns and so I encourage you to fill out the survey if you’ve got the time to think through each open-ended question; but I just wanted to give you the heads-up about the format as it will take a little bit of time and thought to complete it.
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It’s a totally bogus and worthless survey. Nine open-ended questions? As a current SPS parent, I got an email reminder from the district asking for input. When I saw those questions? Feh. Worthless. Waste of everyone’s time. From where I sit, it looks like they’re fishing for data they can use to justify policies already under consideration. They’re going to have employees code these open-ended responses into predetermined categories – and will, if they’re honest, create new categories if unanticipated patterns emerge – but I doubt they’ll release the (appropriately redacted) raw data so that citizens can make their own comparison.
So true, Protected Static. The data will be massaged to fit the district’s message. Or will simply disappear from view, if it’s bad enough.
The problem is less in the open-ended question than in the areas questioned
For example, How *efficient* is the new assignment plan? Who cares? How BOGUS is the new assignment plan, that’s the question. How is the budget process for allocating to each school? Again, not the problem area, it’s where the district is spending the central money–from weak mandated curriculum and no textbooks to bad centralized accounting–that’s the problem.
Take the survey, tell them what you really think in the comments. Then take a close look at the school board, who are supposed to be the general public’s voice and oversight for the district.
Yeah, I really am glad I was able to comment on their teacher retention policies. I did rant on about the MAP testing though. That was fun.