Students' safety, discipline and teacher pay were among the top concerns mentioned by respondents to a community survey recently sent out by the North Little Rock School District.
Members of the North Little Rock School Board were updated Thursday on the development of a possible strategic plan for the district. Earlier this year, the district asked the Arkansas School Board Association to help it create such a plan.
Joe Quinn of Quinn & Associates Consulting LLC, said the goal of the meetings is to develop a long-term plan that would help the entire school district get on the same page.
The district's communication team sent out a community survey in October asking participants who they were and to share three concerns they have regarding the school district.
Quinn said Thursday during a school board workshop the survey asked parents and non-parents about their greatest concerns within the district. Quinn said an open-ended question was used because the group didn't want to steer participants toward a certain answer.
The survey drew 500 respondents over three days, Quinn said.
Better school safety was the greatest concern among parents who responded to the survey with 19% mentioning it, but Quinn noted that better school safety can include many things.
"It can mean bullying, state of the building, mental health issues in some ways," Quinn said. "It means are they safe on the bus, safe in the hallway. ... There are variations of the answer, but under the category of school safety."
Quinn suggested the district consider such things as mental health and bullying programs, telling parents why children are safe at school, and creating emergency readiness plans.
"Safety means a lot of different things in this world we are living in," he said. "The world we live in now is parents asking if we do active shooter drills. If something really bad happens, do you have the robocall system that will call the home and cell of every parent in the district?"
The biggest areas of concern among non-parent respondents -- 80% of whom were teachers, Quinn said -- were student discipline (25%) and better teacher pay (16%). Only 6% of parents who responded mentioned student discipline among their top concerns, and 3% of parents who responded listed teacher pay.
Parents, teachers and community leaders were aligned with concerns on curriculum, academic rigor and high-performing students, Quinn said. Results indicated the groups were concerned with Advanced Placement courses, ACT preparation and how the district is helping children get to college.
Quinn suggested to the School Board a potential 2020-23 goal that included better internal and external communication, improvements to school safety, and efforts to improve state scores among low-performing schools within the district.
Quinn suggested several ways to improve communication in an effort to achieve district goals, which included creating a culture where efforts are made to treat parents like "customers" to make them feel valued and appreciated.
"Parents give you two things," he said. "They give you their kid, and they give you their taxpayer dollars. They are the customer. ... They matter a lot, and what they think matters."
Board member Dorothy Williams said parent involvement is an issue the district wants to improve.
Quinn said 84% of participants said they were proud to be a part of the school district.
"Proud is a word that matters," he said. "In a community, I believe parents genuinely want to like the school system and want to believe in the school system until they are given a reason not to."
Quinn said the district initially tried to create a strategic plan in 2016. He used the information from three years ago to facilitate a School Board work session in June where board members created a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and student needs within the district.
Among the things school board members listed as strengths were facilities, technology and passion within the community. Board members viewed communication between staff and the board as a weakness, and charter and private school growth as threats.
Quinn said board members also noted a need to identify struggling students. He used an example of a hungry, low-income student who might experience problems at home as an example of a student who might struggle in school.
"Good contemporary school districts like this have to ask the question, 'Where does the parents' job end and ours' begin?' " Quinn said.
Bobby Acklin, superintendent of the North Little Rock School District, said he was impressed with the survey's results.
"I have embraced these goals," Acklin said. "I think that most of us, especially teachers and administrators, agree with this and understand that there are some areas that need some attention."
State Desk on 12/09/2019