Most of Jefferson City Public Schools' staff took a survey a few months ago, and JCPS officials said there are things to be proud of in the results, but other things require major work - especially when it comes to trust between district leaders and staff.
Brenda Hatfield, JCPS director of quality improvement, and Shelby Scarbrough, director of human resources, presented the results of a Panorama Education survey at last week's Board of Education meeting; 75.5 percent of JCPS staff took the survey at the end of August and beginning of September.
The survey for JCPS measured: leadership; access to career development; school climate; relationships with fellow staff, students and families; feedback and coaching; and communication - the communication questions being JCPS-specific, with no national comparisons.
An example of a question asked - about staff leadership - is: "How friendly are your school leaders toward you?"
Hatfield shared what percent of the district's staff who took the survey gave "favorable" responses to questions - responses that
corresponded with "quite" or "extremely."
She also shared comparisons of JCPS staff's responses to responses of staff at other school districts who have taken Panorama's surveys and are "medium free or reduced lunch" and located in "non-urban settings."
Staff leadership relationships: 70 percent favorable; JCPS is in the 40th percentile nationally.
School leadership: 59 percent favorable; JCPS is in the 60th percentile nationally.
Professional learning: 50 percent favorable; JCPS is in the 60th percentile nationally.
School climate: 49 percent favorable; JCPS is in the 30th percentile nationally.
Staff-family relationships: 48 percent favorable; JCPS is in the 10th percentile nationally.
Feedback and coaching: 40 percent favorable; JCPS is in the 40th percentile nationally.
The JCPS questions on communication: 39 percent favorable.
The results were also broken down by whether staff members who completed the survey were elementary or secondary-certified (primarily teachers and administrators) or non-certified (primarily custodians and food service staff).
Certified staff on the elementary level tended to give more favorable responses than certified staff at the district's middle and high schools, and both groups tended to give more favorable responses than non-certified staff.
"We're proud of the fact that our staff indicated that we have solid staff-leadership relationships, and that they have confidence in our school leadership," Scarbrough said.
"Obviously those are very disappointing numbers for the JCPS questions, although with 1,489 employees, I'm not terribly surprised that some of them don't feel that we do the best job of communicating. Not a significant problem, that most companies don't face; I think most of us do have that problem," Hatfield said of the responses to three JCPS-specific questions:
"How positive is the tone that the district leaders set for the culture of the school?" Only non-certified staff answered this question, and 54 percent responded favorably.
"How much trust exists between the district leaders and staff?" Among certified staff, 33 percent responded favorably - 28 percent at the elementary level and 35 percent in the middle and high schools. Among non-certified staff, 42 percent responded favorably.
"How effectively do district leaders communicate important (information) to teachers?" Among all certified staff and certified staff specifically at the elementary level, 44 percent gave favorable responses, compared to 42 percent of certified staff at the middle and high schools. Non-certified staff did not have to answer the question.
Hatfield said the responses to feedback and coaching were probably affected by the timing of the survey, at the beginning of the school year.
"Our staff get periodic evaluations from their supervisors, just like at your companies, but they don't necessarily get those within the first three weeks of school, and so some of the scores here probably reflect that people probably hadn't had any visit from their principal or their supervisor," she said, adding "it's not expected that principals would have talked with staff at that point."
"We do have some significant work to do with our non-certified staff, and we knew that going in," she said of the responses to the questions on professional learning.
"(Non-certified staff) don't feel like they're getting enough professional development and enough learning. We have made a concerted effort in certain areas, with our secretaries and with our paraprofessionals this year," she said. However, she added, after 15 months of work, the amount of work left to do to raise the district's scores out of the percentile shown is "incredible."
Favorable responses to staff-family relationship questions did not suffer compared to other districts across the nation because staff feel families are not friendly - just the opposite, with 69 percent of the district's certified staff and 75 percent of its certified staff at the elementary level responding that families are friendly to them.
Sixty percent of the district's certified staff also said parents are respectful toward them at their school - 64 percent at the elementary level and 53 percent at the middle and high school level.
However, only 28 percent of the district's certified staff responded favorably to "How often do you meet in person with the families of students?" - 32 percent at the elementary level and 21 percent at the middle and high school level.
Favorable responses to that question indicated "frequently" or "almost all the time." There was no further score breakdown provided to show what percent of responses fell under "sometimes," "once in a while" or "almost never."
In terms of what the district is doing with all the information from the survey, Scarbrough said she and Hatfield are working with the district's administrative council, especially on the JCPS-specific questions.
She said everyone on the council is assigned to buildings, and "we are going weekly into the buildings and just meeting with various staff members at various times, just to see how things are going, to check in with them, just to be a presence."
Scarbrough and Hatfield are also meeting with each building principal to present their building-level survey result data to them.
"The most important thing that we want to send a message is that you took the time to take the survey, and we're going to work this feedback with you. Own the data. If you have things that you feel we need to grow, we are going to work at helping to grow in those areas," Scarbrough said.
"Our goal is to re-issue the same survey in one year (November-December 2019), just to see how much growth we've made in those areas, but at the same time, give the buildings a chance to really work this feedback for more than just a couple of months," she added.
Scarbrough also said the goal is to share quarterly feedback on progress with the school board.