What is the survey about?
The survey asks questions about the learning environment in each school. It focuses on safety and respect, engagement, communication, and academic expectations.
Why is the Learning Environment Survey important?
Survey reports are designed to give school leaders and members of school communities constructive information for use in improving programming, engagement, communication, safety, and respect at their schools. Quality Reviews take into account how well schools use their survey results to make improvements.
Who takes the survey?
All parents, teachers and students in grades 6 - 12 in New York City's public schools will participate in the Learning Environment Survey, including all general education, charter, District 75, and phase-out schools. This year, the teacher survey is being expanded to include guidance counselors.
How will teachers receive and take their surveys?
Teacher surveys will be mailed to the school. We ask that principals or a designee distribute surveys to teachers’ mailboxes. Teacher surveys are anonymous and therefore will not have names on them, so any survey can be distributed to any box. Teacher survey cartons will include a roster of teachers and guidance counselors that are eligible to complete the survey for each school. Instructions in each envelope ask teachers to fill out surveys and return them via mail in enclosed postage-paid and pre-addressed envelopes by April 18th. Teachers are also invited and encouraged to fill out the survey online.
Which additional professionals are invited to take the teacher survey this year?
This year, the teacher survey population will be expanded to include all guidance counselors in addition to teachers. With the addition of guidance counselors, the teacher survey population will include all pedagogical staff who, across schools in the City, consistently participate in school planning and improvement efforts related to issues measured by the survey.
Will District 75 parents, teachers and students receive surveys this year?
This year, in partnership with District 75 leadership, parents, and educators, the New York City Department of Education has developed a separate set of surveys designed to measure the learning environment in District 75 school communities. Developed by using the same structure and approach as the survey for general education schools last year, the survey for District 75 parents, teachers and students specifically addresses the experience of District 75 schools and constituents.
How do the surveys affect school Progress Report grades?
Survey results will determine 10% of the letter grade each school will earn on its 2007-08 Progress Report. Along with attendance, surveys contribute to the environment portion of the Progress Report grade. Every survey received will be factored into the Progress Report, with the views of parents, teachers and students counting equally in all but exceptional cases (discussed below). Every school will receive a report that includes its response rates for each group, overall scores for each of four major categories—academic expectations, communication, engagement, and safety and respect—and aggregated response totals for each question on all three surveys. Parents who attend fall Parent-Teacher conferences will receive summary survey reports on their school along with their school’s Progress Reports.
How many years has this survey been conducted?
This is the second year New York City's Department of Education will survey all parents, teachers and 6th - 12th grade students in New York City public schools.
Will anyone know how individual parents, teachers or students fill out the survey? Is my survey confidential?
Your survey is entirely confidential. No one in schools or at the DOE will ever see or identify the source of any individual’s survey response. Surveys are being collected by a professional accounting firm, KPMG, whose job it is to make sure that survey administration is fair and confidential. Survey reports will present aggregated and itemized data to schools this summer but will provide them with no information about individual survey respondents.
Teacher surveys are anonymous. Bar codes for teacher surveys prevent survey duplication but will not be linked to individuals. KPMG will remove all identifying information before presenting survey results to schools and the DOE as a whole.
It is a disciplinary offense for any principal, administrator or other DOE employee to violate survey confidentiality, to take steps based on guesses about how any individual survey respondent might have answered a survey question, to prevent parents or teachers from completing surveys or interfere with their doing so, or to influence or manipulate survey responses in any way.
Who should individual parents, teachers and students contact if they have other questions or encounter problems?
Parents, teachers and students should call “311” with all questions related to the Learning Environment Survey, including lost surveys.