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Highlands County schools roll out districtwide surveys, report near-11,000 app users as part of new communications and academic goals
Summary
Administrators presented two strategic goals: a communications plan launching three district surveys on Dec. 1 and an academic-acceleration plan focused on meeting or exceeding state proficiency and graduation metrics. Board members asked for school-level breakdowns and praised staff training efforts.
Administrators told the Highlands County School Board on Nov. 11 they will roll out three coordinated stakeholder surveys on Dec. 1 as part of a push to strengthen trust through clearer, timelier communication.
Ian Bellinger, presenting "Goal 4," said the district will combine a parent satisfaction survey, an annual staff perception survey and a new student satisfaction survey into a single survey window to reduce burden on staff and families. "This year, we're gonna be rolling all three of those surveys around Dec. 1," Bellinger said, adding the consolidated timing is intended to make participation easier for staff and families. He reported historical parent response counts in the low hundreds despite a district population he estimated at about 11,000 families and noted a margin of error of roughly ±5% for the samples cited.
Bellinger gave district digital engagement figures as part of the presentation: nearly 11,000 app users, thousands of teacher-to-parent announcements made through the district's rooms system in August and September, and steady website traffic. "Almost all of our stuff is duplicated in our app," he said, noting the app reaches users who may not use social media.
At the meeting, board members asked whether survey results can be broken down by school. Bellinger said school-level samples can be small and produce noisy results but agreed staff would share the presentation and explore what school-level reporting is possible without misrepresenting small-sample findings.
Separately, Carrie Connor and Danielle Erwin presented "Goal 1," the district's plan to accelerate academic achievement. They described priority strategies: supporting teachers with benchmark-aligned instruction, maintaining professional learning communities and refining common assessments. "Basically, we want to meet or exceed the state proficiency average in ELA, math, science and social studies on statewide assessments," Connor said.
The board praised the instructional supports and asked staff to continue reporting metrics as the surveys and academic monitoring proceed. The presentations concluded with board encouragement to expand parent and staff participation in the surveys.
