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Schools float public survey

As part of its strategic planning process, the Sonoma Valley Unified School District has put together three surveys to gather information from parents of students, from school staff and from community members who don’t have children in the schools.

The district has already concluded surveys from parents of students but is running the survey for community members who don’t have children in school through Friday, April 13. The survey is available in both English and Spanish and takes about 20 minutes to complete.

The survey is available online at www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22EUMZWFP4N or by hand at the district office, 17850 Railroad Ave.

School Superintendent Louann Carlomagno said the response from the parent survey was better than they expected.

“We had 562 returns,” Carlomagno said. “We weren’t sure what to expect. But this is the first time in the 20 years I’ve been in the district that we have done a comprehensive survey.”

Out of the 562 returns, 41 were completed by hand, 176 respondents used the computer labs at the schools to complete the survey, and 345 completed it online from their own computers.

“It helped that we were doing the survey during parent conference week,” she said. “Parents could use the computer labs and we made a full-court press to get them to take the survey.”

The results of the parent survey are still beingcompiled while the district staff survey is still going on.

“We should have results of the parental surveys next week,” Carlomagno said.

The surveys were compiled through various means, including borrowing others districts’ surveys, borrowing from a parental survey the elementary principals had put together, drawing up specific questions from the Strategic Planning Steering Committee and using the staff survey that a doctoral student from UCSB had put together and was looking for a district in which to use it.

“We looked at a number of surveys and ran them by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee,” Carlomagno said.

The district is compiling the results in-house.

The surveys are being conducted as part of the effort to update the district’s strategic plan.

“We’re doing our best to reach out to as many stakeholders as possible to obtain their input and perspectives on our schools,” the superintendent said.

The district is hoping that the results of both the parental and staff surveys will be available by mid-April with the community survey coming later.

Every three-to-five years, the district updates its strategic plan and it is in the process of developing a steering committee, consisting of district personnel and community members to help define and guide the process.

The steering committee includes, Slade Backer, Sonoma Valley High School Development Trust; Jean Barnier, Sonoma Valley Education Foundation board; Dino Battaglini, Sonoma Valley High School principal; Louann Carlomagno, superintendent; Pilar Cruz, parent and DELAC president; Will Deeths, Altimira Middle School principal and Sonoma Valley Education Foundation board member; Gary DeSmet, SVUSD board trustee; Lynn Fitzpatrick, director of curriculum and instruction; Justin Frese, deputy superintendent; Ismael Gonzalez, classified staff; Bill Isetta, Sonoma Valley High School Development Trust; Helen Marsh, SVUSD board trustee; Brandy Melendy, teacher andVMTA executive board member; Esmeralda Sanchez Moseley, Flowery principal; Carrenne Purtell, teacher; Julianne Ryan, teacher; Tim Wallace, chairperson, Sonoma Valley High School Development Trust; Lynn Wendell, strategic planning facilitator; and Laura Zimmerman, executive director, Sonoma Valley Education Foundation.

“Our stated goals are for all students to be college and career ready upon graduation from Sonoma Valley High School; for all students to arrive at the high school prepared for college prep courses; for all students to be proficient in English by the sixth grade; for all students to be reading at grade level by the end of third grade; and for all children to have access to a quality pre-school experience,” Carlomagno said. “The purpose of the strategic plan is to serve as a road map to ensure that our schools can achieve these goals.”