We did a lot of surveys last year for staff, students, and parents. Like, a lot.
And, inevitably, we would be asked, “How does this compare? How did we do?” Well, the answer to that was mixed.
We have a trove of comparison data ready for you to use. One of the benefits of working with School Perceptions is that we’ve been running surveys for over 20 years. This has allowed us to build a massive bank of data for you that will compare your district to those that are similar.
In other words, between-district comparisons wasn’t a problem.
The most difficult question to answer—if not impossible—was the comparisons over time
(comparisons within districts). Those customers who have been working with us for years and years knew exactly how last year looked compared to years past. They understand if a dip in scores was a long-term trend that still needed fixing or a hiccup in otherwise upward moving data.
In fact, moving forward, they’ll know whether this year’s asterisk gets bigger and whether this year’s data could eventually be set aside as an anomaly. They’ll go back to “regularly scheduling programming,” so to speak.
Thus, our advice to you is to get started now. There are two sets of comparisons that you need—comparisons to others and comparisons to yourself. We’re ready for the first. But we recommend you get started right away with the second so that you can learn about your trends as soon as possible.
The School Perceptions Blog and Resource Center features the voices of our team members. This post was written by Rob DeMeuse, Research Director & Project Manager.