District Gearing Up for Another Parent Survey

As it did in 2009-2010, Ridgewood Public Schools will be conducting another to a range of subjects impacting education.

The survey will again be divided among five sections – school climate, academics, extracurricular activities, facilities and communications. But new to the survey this year will be a section covering the Skyward technology system, which had some kinks to be worked out this year but is one administrators have expressed overall favorable opinions on.

The data, according to the district, will be again shared with the education community and parents can look forward to receiving their survey invite in their e-mail inbox next week. One survey will be given per school for each respective household (so, for instance, if one student is attending B.F. and another Travell, two surveys will be given).

The district initially incorporated parent comments when it unveiled the evaluated surveys. However, the comments were pulled by the district in short time and never reappeared. The district's public information officer Debra Anderson said the district will not be reinstating those comments, and will not post comments on the upcoming 2010-2011 survey either.

The 2009-2010 survey displayed a wide disparity in how parents perceived certain elements of education. For example, many parents said there was far too much homework given while others in the same school said there wasn't enough. Other questions are also expected to be better tailored to the level of school. For instance, there likely will not be questions on tutoring in elementary schools.

Responses to survey questions will remain completely confidential, the district says. Additionally, an e-mail account has been set up to take questions or concerns at survey11@ridgewood.k12.nj.us