Ramona Unified School District trustees heard two presentations at their March 11 meeting. One was a recap of the Local Control and Accountability Plan survey results and the other was a preview of the California Healthy Kids Survey.
The Local Control and Accountability Plan, or LCAP, surveys students, parents, staff and community members to help the district set goals and plan actions that will improve student outcomes. In this year’s LCAP, 57 percent of the respondents were students, 31 percent were parents, 11 percent were staff, and 1 percent were community members.
The results of the survey will be discussed at an April 11 meeting of stakeholders.
Kelly Baas, assistant superintendent of Education Services, shared results of the LCAP during the school board meeting broadcast on YouTube. Highlights included:
More than 80 percent of parents, staff and elementary students believe schools in the district demonstrate trusting and respectful relationships “well/very well.” In the survey, 48 percent of community members responded “well/very well;” 36 percent responded “somewhat” and 16 percent responded “not at all/not well.” Among secondary students, 63.97 responded “well/very well,” 28.25 percent responded “somewhat” and 7.78 percent responded “not at all/not well.”
For the question on how well the district makes students feel cared about, 71.86 percent of elementary students, 74.45 percent of parents and 86.96 percent of staff overwhelmingly responded “well/very well.” However, among secondary students, 44.92 percent said they feel cared about “well/very well,” 33.33 percent said “somewhat,” and 21.74 percent said “not at all/not well.”
Roughly 80 percent to 85 percent of parents, staff and elementary students believe the schools are keeping students safe from physical harm “well/very well.” But 62.38 percent of secondary students said they are kept safe from physical harm “well/very well;” 24.68 percent of them said they are “somewhat” safe and 12.94 percent said they are “not at all/not well” safe.
In a separate item, Ramona Unified trustees voted unanimously to administer the California Healthy Kids Survey, an anonymous and confidential survey, to assess potential health risks and behaviors on the district’s campuses.
About 100 questions address health and safety topics such as bullying or aggressive encounters, amount and reasons for absences from school, and tobacco and alcohol use in the upper grades. Separate surveys are emailed to parents, teachers and on a volunteer basis to students in grades 5, 7, 9 and 11.
Superintendent Theresa Grace said the school district has been awarded a $149,000 Tobacco-Use Prevention Education grant to participate in the survey. The grant money would be used to pay for educational intervention services such as smoking and vaping cessation classes, related supplies and guest speakers, Grace said. At least 10 students per grade level need to respond in order to be eligible for grant funding, she added.
School board members had lengthy discussions about two new questions on the survey this year related to gender, how best to notify parents and enable them to preview the survey, and how individuals can opt out of answering specific questions.
One new question relates to transgender identity and asks students to respond no, yes, I’m not sure, or decline to respond about whether their gender is male/female, nonbinary, or something different than their sex assigned at birth. The second question asks students to indicate if they are straight, lesbian/gay, bisexual, something else, not sure, or decline to respond.
After questions from board members, Grace said the survey is the same for all school districts.
“We don’t have the ability to remove questions from the survey,” she said.
Grace said the survey should be issued soon to collect the data and share the results at the district’s April 11 Local Control and Accountability Plan stakeholder meeting.
Board President Bob Stoody said his main concern is giving parents as much information as possible about the survey before it’s released. He said sometimes questions can be suggestive.
“Someone asks, ‘Are you mad at me?’ and the response is, ‘I don’t know, should I be?’” Stoody said. “We need to rely on parents and trust parents. They are the ones who truly have the ability to care for their children.”
Stoody suggested changing the district’s parent handbook, which is distributed at the beginning of the school year, to include an opt-out form for the Healthy Kids survey.
“If parents want their children to take it, I respect the parents’ choice,” he said. “But I need to be convinced parents have a choice.”
Trustees put the following conditions on their approval of the survey: parents should receive two weeks notice before the survey is released and get notification on the school’s website, by email, through the telephone all-call system and by text; and links should be provided to an opt-out form.
In addition, parents who have opted out of the sex education and HIV/AIDs instruction via the parent handbook should automatically be removed from the list of parents and students receiving the Healthy Students survey, the board agreed.
