SCUSD superintendent urges community to weigh in before surveys close one week from today

The Sacramento school district’s historic public surveys on its budget and strategic planning have drawn more than 11,000 responses so far, and Superintendent Jonathan Raymond Tuesday urged parents, teachers and students to take the surveys before the Feb. 9 deadline in one week.

 This first-of-its-kind effort to involve Sacramento residents in the improvement of their public schools involves a pair of surveys on school improvements and the district’s budget. Every Sacramento community member—including parents, teachers and other employees of the district—is being asked to respond to the surveys that will yield for school board members and the superintendent a treasure trove of information about the community’s needs and priorities for public schools.

“We’ve had an excellent response from teachers, parents, students and community members so far. With their responses to these surveys, they are giving the school board and the administration very valuable information to help to make tough decisions on the budget and to help us to plan where we the Sacramento City Unified School District should be headed in the future,” Superintendent Raymond said. “There is still time, though, for more citizens to go online to participate and make sure their voices are heard.”

Community members and employees should log on to the district website, www.scusd.edu, to take part before Feb. 9.

One survey is designed to gain recommendations from the public on how the district should deal with a budget shortfall of up to $30 million.  The other survey will help district leaders design a new strategic plan to improve every school. 

While the community has one more week to weigh in on the issues, the surveys already are producing trends for school district officials. For example, large numbers of community members who have already responded reported that keeping class sizes small and making sure children have textbooks are important considerations for the budget. Teachers and staff, meanwhile, also are trending toward small classes and textbooks as very important  considerations for the budget, along with making sure every school has its own principal.

Students surveyed for their thoughts on the development of the district’s strategic plan are reporting that having good teachers and principals and feeling safe at school are the most important considerations.

 “In the end, the school board will make the tough decisions about how to balance the budget and will set a direction for the district with the new strategic plan. But these surveys are allowing us to have a conversation with the people of Sacramento – teachers, parents and community members alike – like never before in our history. These conversations are vitally important and are giving us a window into the community’s thoughts and ideas about the kind of schools they want. We want to make sure everyone takes this opportunity to be heard,” Superintendent Raymond said.

The surveys were developed by K12 Insight with input from district officials and community members who were part of a special community wide focus group convened Jan. 12.

More than 3,800 responses to the surveys have been received from Sac City teachers, and nearly 3,000 responses have been received from parents and other community members so far. Students were invited to respond to the strategic plan survey, and more than 4,200 students have done so.

The surveys are anonymous. The surveys are returned electronically to K12 Insight, which produces reports for the school district based on the results. No names of respondents are attached to the reports provided to the school district. Results will be shared with the community the week of Feb. 15.

Parent surveys are available in Hmong and Spanish in addition to English. Parents who cannot access the surveys online may call (916) 643-9420 for a paper copy of the survey.