The Mineola Union Free School District Board of Education, photo submitted by the district clerk Cindy Velez
An survey of the quality of Mineola’s schools was presented to the district’s board of education during their meeting last Thursday.
The survey, which was taken from April 30 and closed on June 14, asked parents, instructional staff, members, and students in grades 5-12 for feedback on the most important dimensions of the school environment. The results wee intended to inform decisions at both the school and district levels.
To carry out the survey, district leaders partnered with K12 Insight, a company that partners with school districts to provide better experiences and engagement according to their website. They focused on the following topics: academic support, student support, student expectations, school leadership, family engagement, as well as, safety and behavior.
The survey has been administered district-wide for over 20 years. The results were shared and analyzed by Deputy Superintendent Catherine Fishman and Whittney Smith, director of Instructional Technology and Assessment.
Each section of the survey featured a set of questions specific to the area of concentration. Survey takers had the options of choosing from strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree and don’t know.
According to the presentation, a positive school environment is an essential component of successful and effective schools. It is defined as shared beliefs, values and attitudes that shape interactions between students, teachers, and administrators while setting the parameters of acceptable behavior and norms for a school.
The presentation made it clear that the numbers should not be generalized due to the limited sample size of people who actually took the survey. Participation rates were less than 15% of parents, 38% of teachers, and 60 % of students according to Smith.
After the presentation members of the board had the opportunity to ask questions.
Board Trustee Cheryl Lampasona raised concerns over the percentage of school staff who felt they weren’t treated with respect, as well as a high percentage of staff who believe that discipline is not fairly endorsed.
Superintendent of Schools Michael P. Nagler offered his opinion for the disparity in those numbers.
“The expectations that adults have for this generation are unreasonable. We haven’t lived with the social media immersion this generation lives with and everything that comes with it,” he said. “I think the generational perspective has gotten worse, the norms that we have as adults are not theirs.”
Board members said they wished more people participated in the survey. While acknowledging that participation rates could be higher, Nagler still defended the survey.
“The numbers don’t change. People either want to do it or they don’t. By in-large, apathy is wild and everyone in the middle doesn’t fill it out; but it’s still very valuable. It shocks me how many school districts don’t do this, this is the best data you can get.” he said.
The next meeting of the board is Dec. 12