Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

editorial:

Parents’ homework is to complete survey about Clark County schools

Most big businesses have customer service desks or toll-free numbers where you can complain about product quality or inquire about ordering merchandise. Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, Sears, Home Depot, Michaels, they all do.

But what if you’ve got something to say about your child’s school and you want the people at the top to hear it? You may have a relationship with one or two of your child’s teachers whom you can talk to honestly, and maybe the school principal or secretary. But how do you make sure the issue on your mind gets to the guy running the Clark County School District whose name you can’t keep straight; it’s somewhere between the Russian-born helicopter pioneer Igor Sikorsky or the Austrian crystal maker Daniel Swarovski.

You’re thinking of Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky, and you’d be right to think he’s awfully busy. He’s got 40,000 teachers, support staffers and administrators working with him, all of them on a mission to help form the minds of 320,000 students ranging from kindergartners to high school seniors. It’s the fifth-biggest school district in the country, so it stands to reason you probably can’t call Skorkowsky for a quick chat.

But there’s a work-around, as problem-solvers like to say, a way to still get his attention. The district is asking parents, staffers and, perhaps most important, fourth-graders through seniors in high school to take surveys to glean insight into the climate, culture and learning attitudes at the district’s schools. The multiple-choice questions are specific and simple and can be answered in less than 10 minutes. At the end there’s the part we all look forward to: the open-ended space for additional comments. This feedback will help form and assess the district’s policies and practices.

The surveys are available online (ccsd.net/district/surveys) for parents, staffers and students to complete. (If you don’t have a computer, call the district for locations of computers you can use.) So far, about one-third of the district’s students, but only a small fraction of the parents and staff, have completed them, and the deadline is Thursday.

“This data is essential to working more closely with parents, staff and students on the culture of our schools and improving educational opportunities,” Skorkowsky said last week.

It’s a new-and-improved survey to boot. Last year’s survey took more than 20 minutes to complete, and questions rambled. This year’s is more focused on assessing how well the district is reaching its goals. The findings will tell the district what improvements still need to be made and what success stories should be replicated.

Among the questions being asked of parents this year:

• Do you feel welcomed at your child’s school and know what’s going on there?

• Does your child prepare for class by doing the readings and other assignments?

• Does your child not participate in class discussions for fear of appearing foolish?

• Would your child prefer doing easy work or be challenged by more difficult assignments?

• Does your child volunteer to answer questions only when he is sure he has the right answer?

• Is your child’s school safe, and does your child feel safe?

• Is your child bullied by others, and does the school do a good job at preventing it?

• Is your child teased about clothing or physical appearance or ridiculed because of his race or ethnicity?

• Is school equipment — ranging from air conditioners to computers — in good repair, and are the facilities clean?

• Is there respect for students regardless of differences such as race, ethnicity, gender or disability?

• Do your child’s teachers give her feedback on her performance?

• If your child struggles with schoolwork, is help available?

• And our favorite: Do you like your child’s school?

School is all about report cards; we squirmed with anxiety when we were children, waiting to get our grades, and we can hardly wait to see our children’s grades, to see if they really are the little geniuses we tell our distant relatives they are.

Now it’s time to give the Clark County School District similar feedback, an assessment by you of the job done by teachers and staffers. This survey is very important. Completing it is your homework. Please don’t let down Skorkowsky and, more important, your own children.

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