Fillmore Unified School District staff presented results from the spring 2025 California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), reporting responses from approximately 696 students in fifth, eighth and eleventh grades, 371 parents and about 191 staff. Assistant Superintendent Roger Adams and Superintendent Christine Shefferly framed the results as a key metric for the district’s Strategic Goal 2 on student support and school climate.

Adams said the CHKS administration is more comprehensive than the district’s locally developed midyear survey and that the district added a supplemental mental-health module this year to measure “access to mental health services” directly. He reported that elementary and middle school indicators have declined since 2021–22 and said higher-division (high school) results were generally stable or showed gains at Sierra High School and Fillmore High School.

Adams told the board the CHKS was administered to fifth, eighth and eleventh graders because that grade set is the district’s chosen footprint for longitudinal comparison; he said the survey took roughly 30 minutes for elementary students and 30–45 minutes for secondary students, and that the district received about 696 student responses (almost identical to 690 last year and 711 the year prior). Adams also said the survey has no narrative fields and relies on Likert-scale questions, so staff examined item-level results as well as aggregate scores.

The presentation highlighted five board-identified indicators: feeling safe at school, school connectedness, caring adult relationships, feeling treated fairly and access to mental-health services. Adams said the mental-health/access indicator came from an added module that asks students directly whether they know where to go for help. He recommended distributing printed site-level booklets to principals and sharing reports with school-site councils, ELACs, district advisory committees and student summits.

Trustees asked for more longitudinal breakdowns by subgroup. Trustee Rangel requested additional multi-year staff-comparison data for items such as “students are motivated to learn.” Adams confirmed he will provide additional longitudinal staff and student breakdowns and said the district will print reports for site administrators and expand distribution to stakeholders. Staff also described plans to accelerate the midyear survey window and to coordinate timing so surveys do not overlap with other assessments.

Adams said strengths included high parent and staff ratings on adults who care and school safety in parent/staff results, while areas for growth include bullying interventions, student motivation, family engagement and expanded after-school or extracurricular opportunities. He said district steps will include targeted site action plans, restorative-practices rollout at the middle school, expanded community partnerships and printed community-accessible booklets.