Dear Oak Knoll Parents,
Thank you for taking time to complete our Oak Knoll Site Survey this year! Each grade level was well represented, with a total of 535 responses overall, which is great since we believe that feedback is key in helping us analyze the current situation, reflect, and improve our school for our students and families.
Our survey data is always informative and helps us plan, revise, and reinforce programs at Oak Knoll. We spend time analyzing the data and then meet individually with every staff member to review his/her specific data. These conversations with our teachers happen now so we have time to make necessary changes before the year is over.
Overall, our data reinforces the love and support our students and parents have for our teachers. In fact, over 97% of respondents reported that their child feels connected to his/her classroom teacher, with 100% in kindergarten! We strongly believe that students need to feel connected to their teachers in order to achieve their personal best, socially and academically. Our survey data is incredible evidence that our efforts to build personal relationships with our students is having a positive impact. There were hundreds of positive comments about our teachers' positive attitudes, willingness, and dedication to the students, as well as the high quality instruction being delivered.
Parents also raved about our specialist programs, including PE, Music, Library, Art and 5th grade Spanish! It was nice to also hear that parents feel like the Oak Knoll office runs smoothly and feels welcoming to all. Parents are also happy with the communication our teachers provide them in the form of class newsletters, emails, teacher websites, and receiving completed/corrected class assignments. There were 66 comments mentioning the strong sense of community at Oak Knoll. Innovative programs, culture of inclusion, mindset work, mindfulness, school theme, social-emotional work, school values, and classroom enrichment programs were also all mentioned multiple times throughout the survey.
This year we are already working with the feedback and beginning to address the few concerns identified through the survey results. In direct response to those, here are some specific improvements we are now implementing: -
Lunch Tables: This year we have been working on creating better routines with the kids to keep the lunch area clean and organized. The concern of the tables being too dirty was also called out on the survey. Mr. Barrazza is cleaning the lunch tables right before lunchtime, using a new method of cleaning, which should be more effective. We are also looking into ways (reflective tape, scarecrows, etc.) to keep the birds away from the eating areas. We have also permanently labeled our nut-free tables!
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Parent/Teacher conferences: Our survey indicates that parents feel the official parent/teacher conferences are too early in the year. It also indicates that parents would appreciate more than one "official" conference. We have received this feedback in the past, and this year some of our teachers held their conferences at different points during this school year; this seemed to work well. We will share this feedback with our district leadership. The official parent/teacher conference schedule is part of the MPCSD calendar.
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Parenting in the Digital Age: We are in this together! is a parent education topic that came out as highly desired on the survey. We are offering this evening to our parents at the preferred time, from 7:00-8:30pm. It seems almost impossible to stay up with what our children face and are interested in on the tech front. How do we stay current and at the same time support our children as they navigate through their childhood with the added challenge and gift of technology? On Monday, May 16th TOGETHER we will discuss, share, learn and develop community agreements to keep our kids safe online and engaged in life outside of technology. This is a parent participation event and you will leave with recommendations that you can implement at home! We are also offering FREE onsite babysitting! To RSVP for this event, please complete this form.
As always, we welcome your feedback and believe in continuous improvement. I particularly love that Oak Knoll is truly a school built on collaboration between administration, teachers, and parents. One missing piece is feedback from our students about their classrooms and school experiences. For this reason, we will be launching a new survey next year that asks our students for feedback! This will be a great way for us to hear and learn from our students, and for our students to see that their voices and opinions matter!
I hope to see you at the Spring Picnic tomorrow!
Sincerely,
Kristen Gracia Proud Principal of Oak Knoll School
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