AASD Pulse Survey Results (68% of Parents Not Confident Their Children Won’t Fall Behind)

In response to a parent’s Freedom of Information Act Request, the Appleton Area School District released the results of the AASD Parent/Caregiver Pulse Survey measuring their satisfaction with how AASD is providing school. The survey asked 7 questions.

1. I am confident that my child’s school is handling the COVID-19 challenge to keep my child safe.
2. I am confident that my child’s school is focused on the social emotional well-being of my child
3. I have the resources needed to help my child learn.
4. I have access to my child’s teacher(s) when needed.
5. I receive feedback from my child’s teacher(s) about my child’s learning progress.
6. I am confident that my child will not fall behind in school.
7. I receive timely communication on changes that occur at my child’s school.

Of particular note is that 42.01% of parents believe their children will fall behind, while only 32.75% of parents believe their children will not fall behind. The remaining 26.24 respondents had mixed feelings.

At the high school level, 68.29% of West’s respondents were unable to affirmatively say they believe their children will not fall behind, that rose to 70.24% of North’s, and 72.38% of East’s.

Now for personal thoughts….68% of the district’s parents not being able to confidently say that their children will not fall behind academically seems like a serious problem. It’s particularly concerning for high schoolers. There’s still hopefully time for younger children to get caught up, but high schoolers only have 1-3 years which is not a lot of time.

I also found the way some of the questions were worded to be odd. Take questions 3 for example: “I have the resources needed to help my child learn.” That question literally has nothing to do with anything the schools are doing. A confident, reasonably educated parent could honestly strongly agree with that statement simply because they on their own possess the resources, while, at the same time, a school could be failing miserably at providing resources. A better question in my mind would have been “My child’s school is providing me with the resources needed to help my child learn.” That at least has something to do with the school’s performance.

Question 1 (“I am confident that my child’s school is handling the COVID-19 challenge to keep my child safe.”) also seems needlessly obtuse. It seems overly focused on unimportant motivations while completely ignoring results. One could strongly agree with the above statement while also thinking AASD’s response has been terribly ill advised. “I am satisfied with AASD’s response to coronavirus” would have been more to the point and allowed parents to give more direct feedback about their feelings regarding the Appleton Area School District’s coronavirus response.

You can download and read the entire Pulse Survey Results here: