As required by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the Wright City R-II School District has completed a climate survey.

At the April meeting of the R-II School Board, District Communications Director Morgan Kohr presented the survey findings to the board.

“We’ve moved the climate survey from the fall to the spring,” Kohr said. “The (climate survey) committee was very active in refining (the survey) and going through all the questions.”

The districtwide surveys went out to staff (December-January) and students and parents (March 9-20).

“We pushed back the surveys because we wanted to capture any new things that may have happened in the second semester,” Superintendent Dr. Amy Salvo said. “That way we could also capture more of our families’ (responses).”

While parent responses stayed steady at 380, student and staff responses rose compared to last year. Student involvement rose from 102 to 772 responses – a 13 percent increase – while 12 more staff members responded over the last year.

“I feel like the (staff increase) is a win for us,” Kohr said.

Board member Erin Williams asked Kohr about the reason for the increased activity among students.

“What do you attribute the increased participation to?” Williams asked.

“I think that administrators had tactics to ensure that every student had the opportunity to take their survey,” Kohr said. “They set up more structured times. Everyone on the team made sure the survey was viewable.”

Among the highlights of the student questionnaire were students' responses regarding their teachers’ expectations and emergency preparedness.

“It’s a positive to see that our students wholeheartedly agree that their teachers do expect the best out of them,” Kohr said. “Overall, it was a four-percent positive increase. Also, more of our students are confident in what to do (in an emergency).”

On the parents’ survey, the addition of a question about the focus of district communication was a highlight, as was a line of questions about the district’s focus on character development.

“I think sharing more information about what the district is doing to (boost) character development (is important),” Kohr said. “We’re doing great things. We just need to get the message from the inside out to let them know what we’re doing. Overall, communication satisfaction from the parents had an 85 percent positive response. Our social media presence is greater than it has been in years past. That’s just really awesome.”

In the teacher portion of the survey, Kohr said that the teacher’s feelings of having enough time and support to plan decreased in favorability by 26 percent. Also, the percentage of teachers who see parents as partners in the educational process has dropped by 17 percent.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Board member Kyle Lewis asked about what is being done with the survey’s accumulated data.

“What I struggled with in reviewing the data was in how we utilize the survey results to form goals, how we’re executing goals or what they are,” Lewis said. “I don’t think we’ve given Amy direction as to what our next steps are or what we want to see.”

“I think that’s a great discussion to have when we set our board goals,” Williams said.