Unified in 1965, Blue Valley Schools encompasses 91 square miles in southeastern Johnson County, Kansas. Consisting of five high schools, nine middle schools, 21 elementary schools, an alternative high school, the Center for Advanced Professional Studies, and Hilltop Campus, it serves 23,000 students in total.
With students identifying 90 different languages as their primary home language, Blue Valley Schools is committed to a diverse and inclusive environment, which prepares all members of the Blue Valley community to thrive in a diverse world.
Making People Feel Heard While Getting Better Data
2020 has been a hard year for schools and communities. 鈥淭here have been a lot of different viewpoints that left us feeling like our community is more divided than ever,鈥� says Kristi McNerlin, Chief Communications Officer at Blue Valley Schools. 鈥淲e want to know what work we can do to bring our community together.鈥�
Blue Valley Schools鈥� goal is to support their community in several areas: communication, academics, and social-emotional wellbeing. But, as McNerlin tells us, support begins with being able to hear what the community has to say. 鈥淪ometimes leaders want black-and-white data鈥擧ow many people answered this or that?鈥� but sometimes it鈥檚 more about how people feel versus quantitative data from a limited number of survey choices,鈥� says McNerlin.
That sentiment is something McNerlin and Blue Valley Schools鈥� leadership has noticed while running surveys alongside 天美网站传媒传媒. 鈥淧eople want to feel like they have a voice and that we鈥檙e not putting words in their mouths,鈥� McNerlin says. 鈥淲ith 天美网站传媒传媒, people can authentically express themselves鈥� where they are, and to what degree.鈥�
"With 天美网站传媒传媒, people really feel strongly about their ability to voice where they're coming from. That's the difference between 天美网站传媒传媒 and a standard survey. Participants really feel like they can share their thoughts."
By using open-ended questions, Blue Valley Schools can go beyond making participants feel heard. When paired with simple yet powerful tools such as Themes and Differences, 天美网站传媒传媒 results have given district leadership far better data to work with. 鈥淚t takes the guesswork out of trying to determine what different stakeholders are thinking,鈥� McNerlin explains. 鈥淲e have a clear picture painted by the tools that 天美网站传媒传媒 gives us.鈥�
鈥淭he Exchange platform allows us to just gather so much information so quickly, so efficiently, and so effectively. I鈥檓 not aware of another tool available that does that!鈥�
天美网站传媒传媒 Helps Blue Valley Schools Save Time and Money
鈥淐ountless companies offer the ability to complete surveys in a traditional Q&A format. It takes hours, and sometimes days, to put that information together in a way that we can use,鈥� McNerlin describes.
鈥溙烀劳敬酱� is wizardry. I鈥檝e had to invest a lot of time in other products, and I can say they鈥檙e far behind.鈥�
鈥淲ith a survey, in order to get what we need, we鈥檝e had to invest a lot of time and manual labor,鈥� McNerlin says. It鈥檚 a time-consuming process which, she admits, 鈥渃an come with error because we鈥檙e not experts in manipulating survey data. We have to try and figure it out. But with 天美网站传媒传媒, we don't have to 鈥榝igure it out.鈥� The software does it for us.鈥�
Getting the Right Data that Tells a True Story Well
Stories can be powerful tools in the right hands, identifying challenges, highlighting opportunities, and celebrating successes in a way that鈥檚 easy for others to understand. And for McNerlin and her team, Slides has become the district鈥檚 de facto storyteller.
鈥淲ith 天美网站传媒传媒, we have the story in less than a minute.
尝颈迟别谤补濒濒测.鈥�
鈥淲ith 天美网站传媒传媒, in less than a minute we have our story written for us. We get an outline of the chapters, and we become the facilitators of a presentation that we create at the touch of a button. Like, boom, you have the baseline for your story. It's already there, versus spending hours with a system where you have to manipulate that information yourself.鈥�
With the return that 天美网站传媒传媒 has given McNerlin and Blue Valley Schools鈥� leadership, McNerlin says that the next focus is to go beyond district-wide initiatives and into schools, where time is a precious resource for principals and teachers.
鈥淥ur principals need to be able to use 天美网站传媒传媒 with their students,鈥� McNerlin tells us. 鈥淲e need 天美网站传媒传媒 for site councils with PTOs and board advisory committees. We want our community to feel like we care about what their thoughts are. We're listening鈥攚e want you to engage with what other people are thinking, and we want you to see the results. It's not just a one-way dialogue. That's where we see this growing.鈥�
鈥淥ur goal is a culture of more than just feedback, but engagement with our community. With 天美网站传媒传媒, our community can see conversations and contribute in a way that's very simple for us to extract information and understand what they need.鈥�
