2016 – 17 Anonymous Parent Survey Results
Hello Parents,
Before Thanksgiving I sent each student’s parents/guardians an email inviting them to take an anonymous survey. I promised to provide the results later in the year. Here are the results.
This year just under 60% (66/115) of parents responded. Thank you to all who provided feedback. If you did not respond to the survey, you are always welcome to provide feedback through email. You are always welcome to contact me with additional feedback. If you’d like your feedback to remain anonymous, just have an envelope placed in my mailbox at school.
Based on survey responses:
1. Most respondents do not use the wiki to find class information. The link to my wiki is https://levine.wiki.dublinschools.net/. I provide the link at the bottom of each email and on my Schoology page.
2. Almost 60% of respondents use my Schoology page to monitor when assessments are scheduled and for other announcements.
3. 84% of respondents believe my emails are informative with another 12% provided a neutral response. The last 4% (3 respondents) of respondents believe my emails are not informative. I try not to send email just to send email, so not every parent has had email communication from me.
4. 98.5% of respondents believe my email communication is professional. One respondent gave me a less than neutral rating. Unfortunately there wasn’t any written feedback to help me understand the low rating, so I don’t know how to improve the rating.
5. All but one respondent believes they can communicate openly with me about their student.
6. All but one respondent believes their students are taught at an appropriate level. If you ever have a concern about your child’s needs, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
7. 97% of respondents believe that I want their child to succeed and that I have their best interests in mind with one of the remaining respondents providing a neutral response. One respondent believes that I don’t have his/her student’s best interests in mind.
8. 94% of respondents believe their child is making significant progress, or slightly below significant progress. 6% provided a neutral rating. One respondent made an interesting comment that questioned how one is supposed to tell if one’s student is making progress in science. It’s a great comment. I used to teach math and it was much easier to track a student’s progression through math. I think I will omit this question in future surveys.
9. 91% of respondents believe their student is comfortable in my class. 4.5% provided a neutral response and another 4.5% (3 respondents) believe their student has some level of discomfort in my class. Some students appreciate my style more than others. I want each student to feel comfortable. When I anonymously survey the students next week, I hope to get specific feedback. Based on that feedback, I may adjust what I do in class.
Answers to open ended questions didn’t yield any trends to address. Overall most respondents seemed pleased with the way the year is going and how I operate in the classroom. I will address a few comments.
1. A few respondents mentioned my sense of humor, which admittedly isn’t for everyone. However, the ratio of positive comments about my classroom persona far eclipsed the one respondent that isn’t pleased with my classroom persona. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to please all students (or parents). If I discover a student does not like the way I respond to them, I try to change how I respond to that individual student.
2. A couple respondents wanted more challenging work for their student. If you believe your child isn’t being adequately challenged, please let me know.
3. One respondent asked for a centralized place for students to access information for my class. That place is my wiki. That doesn’t mean that students might not get to other resources through my wiki, but all links and resources that I reference start on my wiki.
4. An individual wished that my wiki were indexed. I don’t believe that is possible, but if one looks to the left hand side of the page everything is sorted by grade and unit.
5. One respondent asked for more communication. If at anytime you would like more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me. With 115 students, I try to use group emails and scientifically speaking to communicate unless there is a specific student need to address.
Thank you all for your feedback. You are welcome to contact me anytime with additional questions, concerns, and feedback. If you still want the feedback to remain anonymous, you can type up a note and have it placed in my school mailbox.