Firm balks at releasing school survey comments

Kim Jacobs wants to see the comments ... and she is not alone.

The Barrington resident and member of the school department's strategic plan steering committee said she and other committee members should be allowed to read the actual comments shared on a recent survey. She said she did not want to wade through interpreted "themes" which would be provided by a consultant. 

Nearly 1,000 people completed the "strategic planning parent satisfaction survey" as part of the planning process. The survey asked parents to rank their feelings about comments such as "My child's learning is a high priority at this school" and "My family is treated with respect at this school." Many of the survey results include unique comments. 

During a strategic plan committee meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 18, an official from the firm hired to facilitate the creation of a new strategic plan said committee members would not be receiving the actual comments from the surveys. 

Instead, they would be given "themes" that consultants believe accurately portray the comments.

"I very strongly disagree," Ms. Jacobs told Dr. Melissa Matarazzo, a "coach-leader" from The Studer Education Group. (The school department is paying Studer $22,400 to facilitate the strategic plan creation process.)

Ms. Jacobs said she opposed putting barriers between the survey results and the committee members who are tasked with building the new five-year strategic plan.

"I think we have a right to see that," Ms. Jacobs said, referring to the comments.

Dr. Matarazzo said turning the anonymous comments into themes would eliminate the potential for "disrespectful or non-constructive language" to be shared with the public. There were concerns that the comments could identify specific people in the district.

Some committee members challenged that premise, stating there were simple ways to eliminate disrespectful comments — for example, someone could redact names or identifying information. 

Some committee members appeared to be concerned that the themes would only offer an edited or altered version of the survey comments.

Kevin Farley, a teacher at Hampden Meadows School and a committee member, asked Dr. Matarazzo who would be responsible for creating the "themes."

She said she and at least one other representative from Studer would create the themes, checking each others' work in the process. 

Dr. Matarazzo then told Ms. Jacobs that they would have to "agree to disagree" about sharing the actual comments. 

But the committee member pressed the Studer Education representative, asking if Dr. Matarazzo would reconsider her stance if the majority of committee members felt that the actual comments should be shared.

Dr. Matarazzo accepted the offer and told committee members — they were separated into groups of five or six people each — to discuss the idea among themselves. 

About five minutes later, people shared with the entire group.

Anna Clancy, a member of the school committee, said she did not expect people to blindly follow the direction of the consultant, but felt it was important to stay with the process if it has worked in the past. She reminded everyone that the district's goal was to build a new strategic plan.

Tracey Whitehead, the principal at Nayatt School, questioned whether it was a productive use of committee members' time to wade through the individual comments, but Jeff Brenner said his group wanted to have the raw data, and felt that some themes could be a bit repetitive. 

School committee member John Alessandro told Dr. Matarazzo that communication about this process could have been improved. He said it would have been better if committee members and others had been told earlier that themes would be shared and not actual comments from parent surveys.

Primrose Hill School Principal Pat Tolento agreed. 

She said survey respondents were not told that their comments would be turned into themes. She said clear directions on the survey would have remedied that problem.

Mr. Farley asked whether all themes would be shared with committee members. He said there was a need for transparency while creating the new strategic plan.

Middle school teacher Mary Roberts attended the meeting, which was held at the high school library. She said the comments should be released, adding that parents had taken the time to share their thoughts and were never told that they would be condensed into "themes."

Ms. Roberts was curious if the school committee had directed Studer Education to create the themes and not share individual comments. 

In addition to the nearly 1,000 survey responses, strategic plan committee members also witnessed a strong response for focus group sessions. Nearly 200 people — 44 students, 88 district employees and 60 family/community members — participated in the focus group sessions which were held earlier this week.

Mixed messages?

A press release from the school department from earlier this month stated that results from the survey would be analyzed by The Studer Education Group and all comments would be shared with school principals. "… the responses will remain anonymous and will not be shared with the general public, only the numerical ratings."

But a more recent release stated "In September, our partners at Studer Education administered anonymous, online surveys to all parents and employees of the district. Participation was impressive: more than 200 employees and at least 665 parents participated in the online surveys. The steering committee will be able to review these survey results, as well as recent student survey results, for planning purposes at their Nov. 9 session."

Student feedback in focus

Should students be surveyed about the school district's new strategic plan or should officials use information from other surveys while drafting the plan?

This question surfaced during the strategic plan steering committee meeting on Wednesday.

Dr. Matarazzo said enough information was likely available from prior student surveys. She referenced the Challenge Success survey local high school students participated in more than a year ago.

Chris Sarli, a student at the high school and a member of the strategic plan steering committee, disagreed with Dr. Matarazzo. He said the committee should discuss having a new student survey which would accommodate for open responses, similar to the survey given to parents recently.

People discussed the idea for a few minutes; it was not clear if the surveys would allow for open responses, and further it was not clear if the responses would be turned into "themes" by Studer Education officials.