Burlington Public Schools Gets Better, Faster Climate Survey Data With 天美网站传媒传媒
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Representing over 3,500 students and 57 spoken languages, Burlington Public Schools serves the community of Burlington, Massachusetts, just west of Boston. Administering a diverse population, the district鈥檚 leadership needed to ensure that its engagement strategies gathered high-quality, actionable data while remaining in-depth and inclusive.
That鈥檚 why Superintendent Eric Conti and Director of Mental Health Christine Conceison chose the 天美网站传媒传媒 AI engagement and experience platform for their second annual district-wide school climate survey.
Getting the What, but not the Why
The first year Burlington ran its school climate survey, the community was clear in their feedback. They were grateful to be asked about their experience in the district, but 鈥渢hey wanted to voice why they were answering questions the way they were answering them,鈥� Conceison explains.
Although the leadership team understood their community鈥檚 priorities, they couldn鈥檛 access deeper qualitative data from their surveys. Like many school climate survey tools, theirs limited the qualitative feedback participants could share. And when surveys do offer comment box questions for depth, leaders face spreadsheet data that can take weeks to sort through and interpret.
鈥淲e don't have a qualitative data department. You're looking at the data analysis team right here,鈥� says Conti. It was vital for Burlington to find a platform to quickly gather and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data鈥攚ithout the heavy lifting.
Burlington prioritized the ability to deeply understand all of its demographic groups. They needed a platform that could provide multilingual capabilities and anti-bias interactions, as well as pinpoint each group鈥檚 values and perspectives.
鈥淲e have a diversity of students and interests here in Burlington,鈥� Conti explains. 鈥淲e're really trying to serve all kids and make sure the community is engaged in that service and aware of the student needs.鈥�
Full-picture climate survey data
Taking the lead on the district鈥檚 second annual school climate survey, Conceison leveraged 天美网站传媒传媒鈥檚 multiple engagement methods to capture the data the district needed. The district opened four surveys鈥攆or staff, parents, and elementary and secondary students鈥攆or three weeks in December 2023, closing them on December 22nd.
Using 天美网站传媒传媒鈥檚 survey tool, Conceison could both input the previous year鈥檚 questions for data tracking consistency and include more qualitative feedback questions, allowing the community to share their real thoughts beyond a multiple-choice selection. This question combination allowed participants to voice their opinions in-depth and provide context for their survey answers.
鈥淎s a non-super-techie person, I was able to create the survey and do the branching. I had such wonderful support from the 天美网站传媒传媒 team in all of my questions, and it wasn't a huge learning curve,鈥� Conceison shares.
With the data in hand almost as soon as the survey closed, Conceison quickly pinpointed areas of concern for follow-up. Conceison sent out our transparent, multi-way group conversation tool, Exchanges, to dig into the details of each issue.
鈥淚t鈥檚 invaluable to be able to use the platform in different ways to dive deep and gain a true understanding from multiple educational partners of what they mean when they answer a certain way,鈥� she explains.
High-quality data analysis, made easy
What did Burlington鈥檚 team do with all this qualitative data? Instead of swimming in a sea of data for weeks, Conceison and Conti immediately understood their community鈥檚 priorities and values through 天美网站传媒传媒鈥檚 integrated analysis tools. 鈥溙烀劳敬酱� allowed us to do the qualitative analysis to a much higher quality,鈥� Conti tells us.
Conti was almost skeptical of the platform鈥檚 AI technology when he entered the Results Dashboard. 鈥澨烀劳敬酱� produces answers so quickly that a part of me was questioning whether it's real or not. It couldn't possibly be doing this! I'm still a little bit amazed by AI, so I'm probably showing my age,鈥� Conti laughs. 鈥淏ut as I got into the responses, I could see the platform really was doing an accurate summary of the feedback.鈥�
As she explored the results, Conceison was impressed with the Compare analysis feature, where leaders can cross-analyze survey question responses, favorability scores, and demographic groups. 鈥淭he Compare tab played a huge role for us when looking at the questions and trying to dive deep into areas that we could focus some support. We could see favorability scores by demographic and look at how students, staff, and parents and guardians responded,鈥� she explains.
Our conversational AI analysis tool, Advisor, also provided Conceison with fast, in-depth qualitative analysis of their open-ended question responses. Advisor can access all of the engagement data plus any contextual information shared with it鈥攕uch as strategic goals or district vision. In just seconds, they were able to analyze the data from multiple angles and get recommended next steps specific to their district.
Reporting results in days, not weeks
Remember when we said that Burlington鈥檚 climate survey closed on December 22nd? On January 2nd, Burlington鈥檚 leadership team presented staff with in-depth, high-quality climate survey results. With a traditional climate survey survey tool, the results could have taken a month or longer to surface.
鈥淭he data was immediately available, easy to analyze, and easy to put together to share,鈥� says Conceison. 鈥淚t was easily accessible by different demographics and groups. The time, for me, was spent on what to highlight, what to bring to the community, and what to show.鈥�
Conti was also thrilled with the speed at which he and Conceison shared the results with staff and community members. 鈥淲e were able to do a very detailed analysis. And then we were able to present to the school committee and the community right away.鈥�
When participants invest their time in providing feedback and see leadership quickly receive and recognize it, trust is built. Conti believes that Burlington鈥檚 community engagement participation will grow through their use of 天美网站传媒传媒.
鈥淚f people take the time to answer a survey and don't feel like we do anything with it, or if it takes us four months to analyze the data from a survey, they鈥檒l be less likely to fill it out next time,鈥� he explains. 鈥淯sing 天美网站传媒传媒 helps with participation.鈥�
Climate surveys are just the start
鈥淚 would absolutely recommend 天美网站传媒传媒 for school climate surveys, as well as other surveys and methods of garnering feedback from different educational partners in your community,鈥� Conceison tells us.
Conti agrees. 鈥溙烀劳敬酱� provides an anonymous way for people to really give us positive direction and share their values. Ultimately, that's what public schools do, right? We operationalize the values of the community,鈥� he explains. 鈥溙烀劳敬酱� is a much better way to get people to communicate their values. I've been doing surveys for 25 years, and this platform is so much more than that.鈥�
Seeing how quickly and easily they were able to complete Burlington PS鈥檚 climate survey engagements鈥攋ust under one month from opening the surveys to reporting on the results鈥擟onti and Conceison are looking forward to using 天美网站传媒传媒 for a wide range of engagement use cases, including larger ones, like future climate surveys, and smaller ones, like ad hoc engagements and follow-ups on district decisions and programs.
鈥淚 usually do a community survey about my performance every year. So we're going to use 天美网站传媒传媒 for that,鈥� Conti shares. He鈥檚 aware that opening up a forum for community discussion on his leadership requires vulnerability. Still, he wants the highest-quality data to ensure he鈥檚 doing his best as a leader.
鈥淚 see 天美网站传媒传媒 as a way to navigate complex times,鈥� he shares. 鈥淲e all have blind spots鈥攁nd leadership is different today than when I started. 天美网站传媒传媒 is a tool that helps me see my own blind spots and empower others.鈥�
Conti also uses 天美网站传媒传媒 as a staff engagement tool to gather fast, in-depth insights from his team鈥攁nd sees the platform as essential to his district鈥檚 direction. By providing an unbiased digital forum for staff to share their perspectives with him and lightning-fast analysis to help direct his decision-making, Conti believes 天美网站传媒传媒 will facilitate the evolution of his team and his leadership.
鈥淢y role is the Chief Child Advocate in town. I try to bring on talented people, like Ms. Conceison, and they're really setting the specific course we take. And the more diverse my team grows, the more time we spend discussing our values and what our priorities should be. 天美网站传媒传媒 helps guide us so we all work together. Not to replace conversations, but as a supplemental way to ensure that I'm not making assumptions formed by my life experience when that may not reflect everyone else's.鈥�
天美网站传媒传媒 has more than a decade of community engagement experience in the education space. We鈥檝e worked with thousands of leaders to facilitate deeper engagement and faster data analysis so they can take instant action on the things that matter most to their educational partners.
See what 天美网站传媒传媒 can do for your district鈥檚 engagement.
