I'll admit it, I do get skeptical when I receive a request to complete a survey.  Does anyone actually look at them?  What are they really trying to sell? What will they do with the results?

As part of our "launch" this semester, I feel it's important to gather community feedback in different ways regarding our schools.  While I try to stay connected with our staff and students as well as benchmark with other high performing school districts and leaders, I also realize the power and importance to listen and gather feedback from our parents and community members.

Last month, we partnered with Fallon Research which specializes in gathering community feedback through a sampling technique through phone calls and text messages.  From their research and previous work across the country, they believe it provides a better rate of return by collecting information that represents the community's demographics.  Therefore, not all community members were invited to participate.

In working with the Company, we posted similar questions in an online survey released on March 1 and will remain open until Friday, March 15 (was originally set to close on March 8, but we decided to extend it one more week).  We will not be able to combine the results with the other survey, but it will serve as another data set for our district and building leaders to review to help inform us of things to celebrate and potential areas to address in the future. 

To be honest, I am hesitant in even doing this, as I know we won't ever be able to accommodate all of the needs from our community given our constraints on time, money, and resources.  Yet, I do think it's still important to allow the opportunity for community members to share information and allow it to help inform us into the future.

In addition to the surveys, we continue to gather feedback through our Community Coffee Chats.  Everyone has been great in providing positive feedback as well as providing feedback on areas we can improve for our students.   All of this also becomes important as we also bring a committee together to help review our mission and vision as well as shape a general strategic plan for our future.

I am excited for the future and appreciate our Oakwood community coming together to provide the best for our students.

If you'd like to participate in the Community Survey, you can click here: Oakwood Schools Community Survey

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