Joyce Middle School PTO

Parent and Teacher Survey - Highlights

May 2009

Responses

• Typical survey responses – 10% response rate
• Teacher responses:  sent to approx. 50 teachers:  responses 29 full, 9 partial – 76% response rate – Phenomenal!
• Parent responses:  Sent to 148 families – 26 full, 1 partial – 18% responses rate

Financial Efforts – Parent Question

Strong support for Enrichment/Field Trip activities for the students, Books for the school library, Yearly Scholarship Donations to high school seniors that attended the Joyce, Assist with funding the 8th grade celebration, and Teacher Appreciation Event

Fundraising – Parent Question

• Parents are willing to support many of our efforts, most popular:  Recycling Events, Family Donations and Raffles
• Identified confusion regarding PTO vs. School fundraisers – it doesn’t seem apparent to parents that there is a difference
• Some suggestions:  Yard/Book Sale, Walk-A-Thon

Activities – Asked to both Teachers and Parents

Strong support from parents to provide funds for supplemental classroom materials, media, and technology as well as focusing on Community Education programs and family focused events.  The teachers strongly support these things as well, with more focus on the family focused events and education programs

• More family events for student and teacher families – like Night at the Red Sox, Night at the Pops, Movie Night, Bowling, Canobie Lake, etc.
• More varied selection of books at book fair for  those not yet at middle school reading level
• Workshops from parent perspective – homework and life stressers, finding balance
• Teachers overwhelmingly would be interested in a “Wish List” and assistance from the PTO in indentifying and applying for grants

Communications – Asked to both Teachers and Parents

• The addition of the website and email newsletter has been well received
• Pages parents find most helpful:  Recent news, Calendar, In School
• More than half the teachers had visited our Teacher Resource page and almost all of them find the info helpful
• Some comments about content: teacher comment: I like to know what is going on with the students outside school. However, I think more teachers need to give more information on what is going on INSIDE the school for parents to be more aware. Big, regular, yearly activities are usually posted but everyday assemblies, activities, teacher projects are a nice thing to know about too! Parent Comments: I'd like to see the monthly meeting notes from the PTO on the website. More articles about what the kids are doing is school. Pictures of events or art that is in the school
  From teachers regarding what we can be doing to support them: A teacher wish list, invite activity groups to speak at meetings, link to teachers’ websites, highlight what is going on in school, keep communication open.
• From teachers – additional things for website – links to the teachers’ websites
• From teachers about how to communicate with them – a lot of them mentioned email

Staff Support – Teachers

• Classroom supplies
• Remind parents to review homework, assignment books
• Increased communication between parent and teacher, without child as middleman

Other – general comments

• Provide workshops for PARENTS on learning disabilities, how to consistently discipline kids, dealing with kids who refuse to go to school, etc. Recognizing drug and alcohol use, depression and "cutting"
• Sponsored networking nights to meet parents of the same classroom or grade. A greeter at the door. Name tags.
• More information about lunch menu and food selections
• Parent outreach for bilingual parents also! That is the key to success for all of our students!