Staff report
Are parents satisfied with timeliness and responses from teachers in Hays CISD? Is the district doing what is in the best interest of students?
Do Hays CISD employees like working for the district? How much?
Those are just a few of the questions a recent survey by K12 Insight, an independent consulting firm, asked of residents and employees of Hays CISD.
Results from the 2014 satisfaction surveys show an increase in participation but also revealed several areas for improvement and opportunity.
Shelby Macintosh from K12 presented the findings to the Hays CISD Board of Trustees Monday night.
For the first two years, the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) conducted the district’s parent/community and employee surveys. District officials changed to K12 Insight at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. Copyright issues prevent the district from using the same questions.
Both the employee and the parent/community surveys were open March 31-April 16 via an online portal. Hard copies were also available upon request. All surveys were available in English and Spanish.
The Hays CISD survey fulfills new requirements set into law by the passage of House Bill (HB) 5 in the 2013 Texas Legislature.
Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction among employees dropped from 91 percent in 2012 to 82 percent this year. Job satisfaction was at 92 percent in the 2013 survey.
The K12 report reminds readers that because this is K12’s first year to conduct the survey, the questions are not exactly the same as in previous years. As a result, a decrease in the findings may not reflect an actual decrease in job satisfaction.
The job satisfaction question in the 2014 survey asked participants how they feel as an employee in a public school system. Twenty-one percent said they always feel good about their job in public education, while 61 percent said they often feel good, but some days are difficult.
Timely/helpful feedback from teachers
Regarding opportunities for improvement, the 2014 survey found that 29 percent of parents/guardians feel they are not receiving timely and helpful feedback on their student’s schoolwork. One quarter said they are not receiving timely and helpful feedback on tests and quizzes. About two-thirds said they are not receiving information they could use to help their child do well in school in a timely and helpful manner.
In the employee survey, however, 94 percent of respondents said teachers give timely and helpful feedback.
The discrepancy between parent and employee perceptions creates an opportunity for the district to improve that rating next year, Macintosh said.
Core beliefs
Eighty-three percent of employees agree or strongly agree that Hays CISD makes decisions based on what is best for students.
Eight-two percent of parents/community members agree that Hays CISD makes decisions based on what is best for students.
Response rates
Overall response was up considerably over the 2013 survey effort. The family and community satisfaction survey had 2,156 respondents — a 50 percent increase from 2013. Additionally, the district nearly tripled the number of Spanish-speaking participants from last year, going from 79 to 234 respondents.
Employee participation also increased 14 percent, with a total of 1,360 respondents, for a participation rate of 57 percent. That’s up from 50 percent in 2013.
Teacher response increased from 63 percent last year to 80 percent this year. Campus administrator participation also increased from 65 percent to 80 percent.
Conversely, clerical/office support personnel participated in lower numbers than last year, from 55 percent to 28 percent. Instructional aide response also decreased from 57 percent to 18 percent.
Study limitations
As with any research effort, this study had several limitations. For example, the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) conducted previous surveys for Hays CISD. Due to copyright issues, the K12 Insight survey was not identical to the 2013 and 2012 efforts. Therefore, trend analysis was at the topic level not individual survey items.
Additionally, because the results do not reflect random sampling, data cannot be extrapolated to the entire population and instead summarize the opinions and perceptions of survey respondents only.
