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Consultant: Jefferson staff and parent survey scores rose across indexes; staff favor stricter phone limits
Summary
A School Perceptions consultant told the Jefferson School District board that staff and parent survey indexes improved year-over-year, with staff engagement and experience notably higher; staff show majority support for a bell‑to‑bell phone ban while parent support is more mixed.
Dr. Poole, the consultant presenting the district’s spring staff and parent survey, told the Jefferson School District board the results were broadly positive, with every index improving from 2025 to 2026 and Jefferson generally outperforming similar districts.
“The good news is you’re up on every one of these from where you were last year,” Dr. Poole said, summarizing the staff indexes for academics, engagement and support. He highlighted a staff experience index that approached 4.03 on a five‑point scale and said Jefferson was outperforming the comparison pool on multiple measures.
The consultant framed the indexes as a high‑level view and then walked board members through specific drivers. Staff top items included feeling safe at work, healthy coworker relationships and access to needed technology; lower staff items centered on discipline practices and pay fairness, though pay fairness showed meaningful improvement year over year. Dr. Poole gave the district’s overall staff recommendation score as 7.90 on a zero‑to‑10 scale and said roughly 45% of staff completed the survey.
Parent results were also up across all five parent indexes, the presenter said, with Jefferson near the 73rd percentile compared with 25 statistically similar districts. Dr. Poole identified parents’ top concerns as student safety and clean, well‑kept facilities and noted the parent response rate was about 15%.
The presentation included focused results on student device policy. Dr. Poole reported that 51% of staff view student cell‑phone use as at least a moderate classroom disruption, and 59% of staff said they would strongly support a bell‑to‑bell ban. Parental support was lower: about one‑third strongly supported a bell‑to‑bell ban, while roughly 49% of parents would somewhat or strongly support such a policy when including neutral‑adjacent responses.
Board members asked about comparison methodology and sample sizes; Dr. Poole said the analysis uses 25 districts that match Jefferson on locale, grades served, enrollment and select demographic measures, and recommended the board review qualitative comments to clarify apparent contradictions (for example, high safety ratings alongside lower satisfaction with bullying responses).
The presentation closed with Dr. Poole advising the board that communication and consistent discipline expectations were among the most actionable levers to move satisfaction, and he offered to provide the district’s qualitative comments and deeper breakdowns by building on request.
