Written by: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic 

Overall strengths and weaknesses stay consistent, but progress is made in some key areas, school superintendent reports

Communicating with staff and parents has been a key component of Superintendent Kym LeBlanc-Esparza’s approach to improving the Newberg School District since she took the job four years ago.

LeBlanc-Esparza spent much of her first year creating a dialogue and listening to staff, students, parents and community members, but one way she has continued that process is by utilizing the National Center for School Leadership’s (NCSL) parent and staff culture survey.

The district received this year’s results and with three years of data in hand, gained a glimpse at some trends for the first time. For the most part, the survey showed that the district’s strengths and weaknesses have remained the same, though there are signs it is making strides in at least one key area.

“I think overall it does confirm the path that we’re on,” communications director Claudia Stewart said. “But each school has its own unique set of data. It will give schools a chance to look at their staffs’ views and their parents’ views and see where they mesh or diverge.”

The top five “strengths” and “opportunities” identified in the staff survey, which drew 333 participants, remained the same from a year ago.

For example, 97 percent of the staff identified themselves as “committed to success,” which was up from 96 percent a year ago and was again the No. 1 strength identified by the survey. Also making the top five were caring about the quality of work (87 percent), knowing what’s expected of them (87), feeling safe at school (84) and caring about colleagues (81).

The survey identified two “significant strengths,” meaning Newberg scored well in a category or question that was not ranked among the top-10 nationally, as 80 percent of staff agreed that they had the “freedom to do my job” and 79 agreed they plan to be with their school or department two years from now.

The five lowest scoring categories in the staff survey, or “opportunities,” were: volunteering at school (37 percent disagreed), amount of work unreasonable (35 percent agreed), satisfaction with professional development (35), collaboration time with peers (26) and relevance of professional development.

In an effort to improve parent involvement, the district did include custom questions in last year’s survey to identify the barriers parents encountered in becoming more engaged.

The district found the biggest reason to be that parents felt they are simply too busy working, so it included custom questions to staff this year in an attempt to find alternative and low-cost ways parents can get involved.

Professional development (PD) has been a focus for the district and Stewart noted that while PD was tied to three of the lowest scoring questions, collaboration with peers and PD relevance both dropped significantly.

The district also included several customized questions about PD on this year’s survey to aid in its efforts to improve its service to teachers in that area.

The number of parents participating in the survey increased for the third year in a row, reaching 853 this year.

The top five areas identified as strengths in the parent engagement and satisfaction portion of the survey were also quite steady, with four of the top five remaining the same.

The highest scoring response was once again the belief that parent involvement is positively related to achievement, to which 95 percent of parents agreed. That category was also identified as a significant strength.

In addition, 88 percent of parents agreed they attend most school events for parents, 88 percent agreed school facilities are well maintained, 86 agreed they are kept up to date on activities and events and 85 agreed that students are encouraged to be responsible.

Areas for improvement included regularly checking online resources (36 percent disagreed), challenging their child to their full potential (26), being regularly informed of their child’s progress (25), providing opportunities outside of core content (19 and homework requiring interaction with a parent (18).

Reguarly being informed of progress and receiving clear expectations about what their teacher expects in terms of school work were identified as “challenges,” meaning they were categories in which Newberg struggled but were not among the bottom 10 nationally.

The district was encouraged to see the response of staff regarding closing the achievement gap, as the percent believing achievement in their school/district will improve significantly over the next three years rose dramatically from 43 percent in 2015 to 60 percent this year.

“That was a pretty significant jump,” Stewart said.

Parents also responded positively to some of the district’s efforts to better connect home and school, as 77 percent said that, overall, information was communicated to them effectively, 83 said they knew where to get information when they need it and 75 percent said they have been encouraged to participate in school activities.

Stewart said that district administrators use the survey results to monitor progress on district-wide issues, but more importantly that building principals share the information with their site councils to guide their work in crafting school improvement plans.

“There are also open-ended questions in both surveys, so it’s an opportunity to listen to staff and parents and use that feedback, as well, in terms of plans and strategies moving forward,” Stewart said. “We certainly need to make our home-school communication more effective and check in on perceptions of how we’re doing with closing the achievement gap.”