School Survey provides insight at Nevalla Elementary
Most recently, students and families struggled with social issues and loss of learning in addition to the uncertainty of reopening of schools and looked to the school leaders to ensure the safety and emotional well-being of their children. School leaders continued to look for ways to improve their school community. One way is to rely on data from surveys to improve their school performance. Reliance on school surveys have been increasing since the pandemic. They help gain informational data to assist educators and districts to implement improvement in learning and teaching. School wide surveys allow students, parents and teachers to voice concerns and improve educational and social outcomes. By looking at the resulting data from the surveys, administrators can identify a problem and address those needs.
The identified problem at Nevalla Avenue elementary school is student behavior and teacher response to those behaviors. As stated previously in the introduction, students struggled with loss of learning and social emotional issues when returning to in-person learning at the school site. It is like the teachers forgot that the pandemic happened and still have expectations of student behavior that are unreasonable at this time due to isolation. Author Jackie Mader in her article titled, “As We Talk About Reopening Schools, Are the Teachers Ok?” speaks about social and emotional mental well being of students and staff as just important. She states that we have never been through pandemic before and we need to allow leeway until a new normal is established. Although we have been officially opened for in-person learning there is still a need to allow for time to adjust.
Teacher satisfaction in recent data collection through the LAUSD School Experience Survey shows that out of 20 teacher responses only 35% strongly agree as satisfied with their teaching experience at Nevalla Avenue and 14% strongly disagree with their teaching experience at Nevalla Avenue.
What is interesting about a Student survey question titled Self Management Skills, 11% chose ( I strongly disagree) I stay calm even when others bothered or criticized me. 31 % strongly agree that they can stay calm. In the survey question titled Student Social Awareness, 12% chose (I strongly disagree) I was able to describe my feelings. 36% strongly agree that they can describe their feelings. The results of the two have middle range overall results however the results do not match the actual school daily reports called referrals to the office. In an interview with classified employee office manager Ms. Monroe states, “ We get about 50 to 60 referral notices from teachers and aides daily ranging from disrupting class, fighting, eloping and teacher requests to keep students in office.”
Are school leaders taking advantage of the school wide survey and using the results to improve student achievement?
At this school site the answer is yes. Are school leaders implementing action plans to address these issues?
Ms. Monroe requested a meeting with the two administrators, Assistant Principals and School Counselor about what type of interventions they can do to help reduce the referrals. The results of the meeting created a plan to target the teachers with an empathy training session. The empathy training session included paraprofessionals and teachers. Handouts were given on how to “fill up your students' bucket” and videos were viewed. Resources were exchanged between special education teachers and general education teachers and a “promise” to serve our students better. Teachers complaints were from not enough administration help to not having resources they needed to assist their students. These complaints do not match the Teacher Survey results where most chose “strongly agree” with The Educator Development and Support process for Teachers helps me to improve my teaching and learning. One could concur that the survey was done in the 2021-2022 school year and those results are different from today's school year 2022-2023 however while looking through the referrals from last year in the office manager's file cabinet, the amount of referrals this year increased. The school wide survey provided insight into what students needed from teachers and administration. The school wide survey helped revise social emotional curriculum, added parent and teacher buy-in contributions and boosted school community morale. To decrease the number of referrals, a Road Map (timeline) to Positive Behavior Practices was outlined and implemented as well as an opportunity for students and staff to participate in the Chalk it up Joy Campaign.
It seems as though surveys helped school sites such as Nevalla Avenue retrieve actionable data that enabled improvement on student achievement and teacher satisfaction.
Will Nevalla have new increased survey results? Who knows, but what I do know for sure is that office manger Ms. Monroe, teachers and students are happy with the positive results so far.
Los Angeles Unified School District. (2021). https://achieve.lausd.net/Page/16550
Mader, Jackie. (2020). As We Talk About Reopening Schools, Are the Teachers Ok? The Hechinger Report. https://hechingerreport.org/as-we-talk-about-reopening-schools-are-the-teachers-ok/. Accessed 8 November 2020
Personal Interview, Nevalla Avenue Office Manager Andea Monroe, 2022
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