TURNERS FALLS — The Gill-Montague Regional School District was able to get a closer look at strengths and weaknesses through a series of surveys to parents and students.
The district asked parents and students third grade or higher to complete the surveys and they also sent a different set of questions to parents who had their students choice or charter out of the district, seeking information on why and how they made their choice.
All data from the three surveys was discussed during Tuesday night’s School Committee meeting. The results are also available online at the district’s website, gmrsd.org.
“We’re very thankful for the families who took the time to provide this information,” Sullivan said. “There’s a lot of really well thought out narrative comments, in addition to just checking boxes, which I think provide a really good picture of life in the district right now.”
School Committee members said the surveys showed areas where certain schools are performing well, but also indicated problems within some schools around culture and student-to-student behavior.
Some of the results were better than others and answers varied depending on the school.
Nearly all of Gill’s students agreed or strongly agreed on two statements: “When I am stuck, my teachers help me find ways to learn for myself” and “My teachers encourage me to do my best.”
“Even the low scores at Gill are relatively high,” Sullivan said.
The questions are a mix of academic and social or cultural questions about the school, learning environment, and classrooms. The wording of the questions also changed depending on the grade level, so they would be developmentally appropriate.
Only two-thirds of students at Sheffield agreed with the statement “I like coming to school” but many high marks were given for things like “my family thinks school is important, my teachers encourage me to do our best.”
“I think we have to give a shout out to the staff at Sheffield, that 100 percent of parents said that said that their child is known well by one staff member,” Montague representative Christina Postera said.
Montague representative Leslee Cogswell suggested that the results be shared with the kids at each school, so they can see how their answers stack up with others, something Sullivan said the school plans to do.
“It would be great for the kids because how often do they get asked about important things like this?” Montague representative Cassie Damkoehler said, agreeing with Cogswell’s comment.
However in Great Falls Middle School and Turners Falls High School, 19.2 percent and 21.9 percent of students agreed with the statement “Students are respectful of each other.”
Only 41 percent of students at Turners Falls agreed with the statement “This school is a good place to learn.”
Several board members agreed that an area of concern were questions about students being respectful to one another and safety and behavior.
“The concerns about safety and the way people act is sort of a common thread,” Montague representative Michael Langknecht said.
Sullivan agreed with that and said those answers stood out to him as well.
“I think the most significant concern out of this survey,” Sullivan said.
The district also mailed surveys to parents within the district, some answers of which indicated similar concerns about bullying and to parents who had moved their children out of the district to other districts or charter and private schools.
About 30 percent of parents district-wide said bullying is a problem at their child’s school.
Sullivan said that the district has bullying incident comparison data with other school districts in the region, and said that Gill-Montague is about average with those other schools, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be concerned.
“Regardless of the number of cases, when you combine this with the idea that some kids aren’t respectful of one another, it does speak to climate issues that really need to improve,” he said.