Research Center

It’s the time you can find out what it is they expect of you. That can, in turn, help you create benchmarks to show how you’re meeting those expectations – maybe it’s how many of your students get college credits in high school, maybe it’s how well they’re prepared for jobs in your area, maybe it’s how well you’re communicating student achievements and budget developments.

Whatever it is, it can guide your planning. Strategically. If only there was a name for that… for now, we’ll just call it “strategic planning.” Maybe that’ll stick.

But to make the right plan, you have to understand the context around you. A “3.20” score and a “3.60” score might not sound that different on the surface, but when one is below the average and the other is above, well, now you know where you want to be.

With that in mind, we wanted to share the trends we’re seeing this school year on our community-wide surveys. (In case you missed it, we covered trends for student, staff, and parent surveys last month).

What’s up?

A lot of things. Nice work!

On a couple items, we’re seeing the highest scores we’ve seen since the COVID pandemic began in 2020: communities are feeling much better about school safety and student development.

Scores are up by 5.3% on people feeling like their district “maintains safe and secure schools.” An even bigger increase comes from community members who feel their district “develops students’ character,” which rose by a whopping 13.2% from last year!

The even better news? The increases hold for non-parents, non-staff – your community members who have the least direct connection to your schools. That means that not only are your staff and parents observing these improvements, but the rest of your community is hearing about them and feeling them as well.

Eleven other items on our planning surveys are up from last year, though they didn’t quite set a record for this decade. Here are the items up by 3% or more:

Community members are trusting their school board members more, feel they’re being informed, believe you are setting high expectations, and that you’re delivering on the baseline promise of schools – giving students a high-quality education.

This is all great news.

Finally, our surveys always ask how likely someone is to recommend their district to a friend or family member. Last year, on a 0-10 scale, the average was a 6.80. This year? That’s up to a 7.00.

And it’s not just staff and parents there, either. Non-parents, non-staff went from a 6.31 up to a 6.49 – nearly the same percentage increase as the overall total.

People are generally feeling better about their schools.

So, what?

It might mean now is a good time to start building that strategic plan for what’s ahead. Scores are up now – but without consistent attention and, importantly, a well-understood target to guide you and your community forward, that momentum can turn on a dime.

We have good news for you on that front.

Last month, we announced our Response to Data (R2D) service featuring some of the Midwest’s best and brightest consultants. Now, we’re adding to it with School Perceptions Strategic Planning (SP2).

We at School Perceptions and our wonderful partners want to keep doing what we’ve always done: gather meaningful stakeholder input and help you turn it into clear direction.

The SP2 process is built about a simple idea: let your strategic plan guide real decisions. That means aligning goals with real data, engaging community voices, and identifying a set of priorities that you as a leader can actually pursue. Ultimately, it needs to be a plan that survives leadership changes – a successful strategic plan is a guiding star for whoever is in those seats, whether it’s day one in the superintendent’s chair or they’re about to secure their fourth school board election.

Importantly, the process has follow-through built into it, as well.

If you’d like to learn more, we’d love to help you ask the right questions and use the answers to build a game plan that people believe in.