Draft Survey for Review by September 16th
Attached are the basic letter and survey as drafted by the board on Septmber 10th after suggestions from our first steering committee meeting on September 9th. They would like comments back on this by Wednesday September 16th. Please send comments to "jennifer.adams @ ocdsb.ca" (remove spaces around "@"). As well, if you are registered at this site, it would be great if you could post comments to this story with your thoughts.
The Survey
The main guts of the Survey is in the document "Staff v3 vetting 10-09-09.doc", which is a survey to principals and teachers. The main two changes to this survey from the Steering Committee are:
- More specific examples of how the tenets are implemented.
- Non-competition (i.e. no rewards or awards)
- Parents take an active role in their child’s education through extensive consultation and input to decision-making processes.
- Multi-grade groupings are created intentionally.
- Change in "importance" area of each question. It used to state:
"In our opinion, how important is cooperation and teamwork in your school?"
but was changed to reflect how the tenets apply to the program's philosophy. Is it a contract parents can depend on?
"Please indicate the extent to which you would agree that cooperation and teamwork are a core tenet of your school’s culture, practice, and approach to learning.
Initial Thoughts
Changes to Existing Content
- Question 2, part (e) should be moved to part (a).
- Question 2, old part (e) should be reworded: " Competition (e.g., awards, rewards) in the school is not
emphasizedencouraged or supported. Non-compeitive sports are highlighted." - Question 8, part (e) should be moved to part (a).
- Question 14, add a new part at the top of the list: "Anecdotal Reporting is used where-ever posible instead of marks"
New Content
We need a question that is mor quantifiable as to why the program may not be living up to its potential:
- The following points have been identified as challenges currently faced by the Alternative Program. To what extent do you agree that these are significant challenges?(use 1-5 grading as in the rest of the survey)
- Provincially mandated graded report cards
- Tight curriculum with no flexibility for multi-age classes
- EQAO Testing
- Lack of proper staff training / accreditation
- Lack of support from school board
- Lack of interest or support by parents
- Insufficient difference in goals from other programs
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Staff Letter.doc | 44.5 KB |
| Staff v3 vetting 10-09-09.doc | 344.5 KB |
| Other Survey Questions vetting 10-09-09.doc | 250 KB |
| ASAC Feedback to Survey Draft of 10-09-09 | 149.7 KB |
I've drafted up the comments and some feedback (including Al's) and sent it to the board. It is also posted here as "ASAC Feedback to Survey Draft of 10-09-09"
I have received emails from council chairs, school education committee chairs and trustees that all point out what is a perceived flaw in the structure of the survey. The survey is designed to meet the stated goals of the review, and perhaps it is a disagreement on the meaning of those goals that is at the heart of the issue.
Certainly the board has gone forward and drafted the review goals and the overall survey structure with no consultation. ASAC was informed of the review last spring only days before it was going to Education Committee and had no input into it other than a quick last minute review by the chair. Similarily the board has drafted the overall structure of the survey based on these goals. The goals can be summarized as:
The Alternative Program Review from two years ago had as its goals much easier questions:
We immediately see two issues:
Problem #1: No analysis on what issues are being faced/why the program may not be exactly like its precepts.
This brings up an interesting comment from Trustee Campbell:
I agree that a key question needs to be what we are comparing. Are we comparing (a) actualities to actualities, (b) are we comparing actuality to realistic potential, (c) realistic potential to realistic potential. I'm interested in 'c' the most myself but see value in 'a' also and we can discuss how realistic it will be to change or improve either sort of programming in ways we collectively want to see. What I fear most is that staff will <...> look at 'b' wherein alt actuality and regular program potential are compared which would be wholly unfair and really sort of irrelevent.Goal 1 discusses the "mandate, expectations and practices" of the program. The survey then delves into each of the six tenets, gives examples and ask two questions:
In Trustee Campbell's words, the first question addresses (a). The second question is more-or-less meaningless, since the board's documents tell us that what the core tenets of the programs are. If people say these aren't part of Alternative Education or are part of another program, then they are mis-informed. Questions we do not get at are:
Problem #2: Even the board's own goal 1 is not being addressed by the structure of the survey. The survey looks at how the practices are different between programs, but not the mandate or expectations. It looks at current reality without considering realistic potential.
Alan Webb, outgoing chair at Churchill, echos this:
It appears to me to be a survey too much about what happens in classrooms in alternative schools, with the potential to extrapolate to what happens in schools in the alternative program. It does not, in my opinion, appear to be a survey about the alternative program. I would expect to see questions about what support teachers and principals have received from the board related to each of the guiding principles – more questions that clearly explore the program level issues that are and have always been critical to how effective we can be in classrooms at delivering consistently with the guiding principles. What training have teachers and principals had? How is accountability, management, structure etc different in the alternative program in order to implement a program that is different? The questions for me are more like “How does the board expect a school to manage decision making in order to implement a ‘family and community centred environment’. I know that the answers to these questions will highlight different issues to the existing draft. I have a cynical view – that the board doesn’t enable us to be different (or perhaps can’t because of provincial or other restrictions). Our principles have not been different (This in particular at Churchill has been highly draining on the parent body over the last 3 principals, as we attempt every 2 or 3 years to explain from scratch what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it). As we lose long-term staff (there are very few left now who have long-term experience in the alternative program) we meet new staff who, although fine teachers, do not clearly have an identifiably alternative ‘edge’.
Monique Cuillerier, past chair of Lady Evelyn, asks some similar questions:
What, specifically, is the survey supposed to be determining? What questions is it supposed to be answering? Reading the survey as is, I can't tell. Having people describe how well they perceive their school/program to be embodying traits associated with the alternative program is supposed to tell us what? There aren't even any questions asking them how much/little they personally value these characteristics. The survey asks if these characteristics are "core tenets" (whatever that means) and nothing else. The questions are descriptive (though very subjective) and nothing else. ... The survey could ask about question 2 (didn't the ASAC revitilization survey ask people about that? what new areas we should be exploring?). The survey could even, point blank, ask number 3 (do you think that the alternative program should continue?). I'm guessing that, if asked, board staff would say that the survey is addressing number 1. But it doesn't, does it?Problem #3: The board's goal 2 (how would a strengthend program differ) is not being address. This, of course, requires asking what what is wrong with the current program and where people would like to see it go.)
Unless the review process has some other, as yet undisclosed, method of determining where an strengthened program should go.
Recommendation
The survey needs to be re-architected, with the following asked for each tenet:
It is pointless to argue over minor wording and sentence ordering until such time as we fix the structure of the survey so that it reflects the goals of the review and provides meaningful information.
In addition, communication with the steering committee should ensure in future that materials are available sufficiently in advance so that a proper analysis can be done at the the meeting.