Dedicated faculty and staff, strong administrative leadership, useful curriculum coordinators, a supportive community, a good professional development program, and improved technology are all identified as areas of strength in a recent survey of faculty and staff at Harvard Elementary School conducted by the HES School Council. But the survey also identified areas in need of improvement, including relationships and respect among colleagues; collaborative decision-making; clarity about the roles of building coordinators; definition about the use of assessment tools; and school building maintenance. The high rate of participation—93 percent—makes the survey results particularly useful.
HES Principal Mary Beth Banios presented the results of the survey to the Harvard School Committee in November and also posted the results on the HES website. (www.psharvard.org/HES/element/documents/HES_climate_survey.pdf) At the December 15 school board meeting, she presented an update of the HES school improvement plan, incorporating the survey results and indicating action plans for dealing with some of the challenges identified by the survey.
Developed by the HES School Council at the strong insistence of the School Committee, the 65-question survey covered matters ranging from school mission and leadership to curriculum, collegiality, and home-school relations. In a telephone interview, Cindy Buhner, parent co-chair of the School Council, explained, “Lots of hours and lots of thought went into the questions and their phrasing. We wanted meaningful questions that would produce good, useful information.” Buhner noted that the council united around the survey development. “The council came together as a very cohesive group, which was a really cool thing,” she said.
According to Banios, the survey shows the high level of dedication and professionalism of the elementary school faculty and staff. “But that is not a surprise,” she said. The survey also showed areas that need improvement. “We knew that some things were issues,” she explained in a telephone interview, “but the survey made these areas more concrete and factual, providing more clarity for the issues.”
Banios described a number of steps she has taken in an effort to address concerns raised in the survey. As a first step toward improving relationships and collegiality within the school, Banios invited Dr. Robert Evans to work with faculty on an early release day. Evans, a clinical and organizational psychologist, had made a previous presentation at the school that was well received.
Banios expects that revised job descriptions for the building coordinators will clarify their roles within the school. She proposes further investigation into how to develop more collaborative decision-making, as well as clarifying the use and function of assessment tools.
As for the physical plant, only a third of teachers and a quarter of support staff considered the school building clean. Asked about this issue, Banios noted, “Our custodial staff runs on a pretty tight budget. We can improve, but they do a good job with the resources they have. Facilities Manager Mark Force is heading a subcommittee to look into the matter.”
Not surprisingly, the survey showed that time pressure is a perennial concern for teachers. Only 28 percent agreed that “I have an adequate amount of time to supplement, enrich and personalize my classroom instruction.” And less than half concurred that “The amount of essential content that has been identified can be addressed in the instructional time available to teachers.”
Teachers rated other aspects of the learning process quite highly. For example, 83 percent agreed that “essential content for all students to learn” had been clearly identified and communicated; and 75 percent concluded that the essential content was well sequenced from one grade level to the next, so that “students have an ample opportunity to learn it.” More than 90 percent said that the assessment system provides “timely feedback on specific knowledge and skills for individual students.”
