For making a meaningful impact by using 天美网站传媒传媒 to gather diverse perspectives and ensure the presence of an authentic community voice in district plans.
Between California鈥檚 annual LCAP updates and mitigating the impacts of the pandemic, Saddleback Valley USD has been knee-deep in community feedback. As the leader responsible for this feedback process, Michael Gomez, Ed.D., Former District Coordinator of Assessment, Accountability, and New Teacher Induction for SVUSD, knew that gathering diverse perspectives and nuanced data is key to making decisions people support. So during his time at SVUSD, he brought in 天美网站传媒传媒 鈥渢o get big picture, big group feedback鈥� and ensure his district had an authentic community voice in their plans.
More Feedback in Less Time
"Prior to 天美网站传媒传媒, when we would do community surveys, we had someone who would spend almost two months processing, analyzing, and charting the data. When we brought on 天美网站传媒传媒, she came to me and said, 'I think there's something wrong鈥擨 need all of the paperwork otherwise I鈥檒l be behind on our LCAP. I must have missed something.' No, you didn't miss anything鈥攖he Exchange takes care of that for us now!"
Running Exchanges with their community groups gives SVUSD clear and concise areas of focus for their LCAP process. Gomez shares that it鈥檚 easy to prioritize initiatives and funding based on the results, and to work with smaller focus groups to refine the feedback even further.
With his background in qualitative research, Gomez is amazed at the speed with which an Exchange captures a wide variety of perspectives and the analysis tools that make it simple to uncover subtle data that may otherwise be missed. 鈥溙烀劳敬酱� takes the heart and soul of qualitative research鈥攖he data analysis and theming process鈥攁nd drastically reduces the time that's spent on it,鈥� he tells us. 鈥淲e've saved weeks and weeks of work just because we had this platform.鈥�
Uncovering Quality Data, Faster
So what鈥檚 Gomez鈥檚 expert opinion of our in-product analytic tools and supports? 鈥淭hey鈥檙e worth their weight in gold.鈥�
Consulting hundreds, even thousands of people means hundreds or thousands of responses to sort through and make sense of. Gomez appreciates how simple it is to categorize the SVUSD community鈥檚 thoughts into action items using the Themes tool. 鈥淚 can collapse and expand on categories in just a click,鈥� he explains. 鈥淚鈥檓 able to go through the thoughts quickly, or I can spend more time delving into the nuance, depending on the conversation.鈥�
Gomez also values the ability to create multiple theme sets to lean into the different angles of the conversation. One Exchange can contain valuable insights into topics like student success, facilities, or budget, and each one can be made into a custom report with its own theme set. Depending on what information he鈥檚 looking for, he can create multiple reports that highlight the topic clusters in word clouds, heat maps, and bar charts.
But he鈥檚 also grateful we don鈥檛 just sleep on our data laurels. 鈥淲e get a notification of a new 天美网站传媒传媒 release, and it鈥檚 like you鈥檝e read my mind,鈥� he tells us. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e always saving me more time, or giving me the ability to take the analysis even deeper, or providing ideas I hadn鈥檛 thought of.鈥� He likes to experiment in our Labs to see how many perspectives he can get on his data, using features like our Theme Flow Maps.
The impact 天美网站传媒传媒 has on a group discussion is felt before any data starts flowing into the product. Participants know that everything they share in an Exchange is anonymous, allowing them the space to be honest in their responses. Gomez sees a difference in how people respond when he compares it to their traditional feedback methods: 鈥淲hen we guarantee the process of giving confidential feedback using 天美网站传媒传媒, people are much more open than they would have been using a survey or Google form. There's some lingering skepticism with those methods.鈥� Knowing that decisions are based on people鈥檚 real thoughts gives leaders peace of mind when they鈥檙e taking action on the results.
Removing the Language Barriers
Like most districts in the U.S., SVUSD鈥檚 community is made up of many different language groups, and in the past, that may have been a barrier to participation for some community members. To build with these community members, including parents and caregivers of English Learners, Gomez needed a platform that would allow all participants to share ideas with each other without a language barrier.
With their District English Learner Advisory Committee meetings moved online, 天美网站传媒传媒 was the perfect vehicle to connect community members across language groups, which included Farsi, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and English. Gomez tells us that some attendees were worried that their perspectives wouldn鈥檛 be represented at the meeting, but the live Exchange he ran put their minds at ease. 鈥淎s I was watching the live Exchange, it was amazing to see the real-time translation as people were sharing thoughts in their native tongue.鈥�
Since connecting people is our goal, we鈥檝e built multi-language capabilities into the product so that all participants can share and read thoughts in the language of their choice. For the districts we work with whose communities encompass many languages, this feature has been a game-changer. 鈥淧reviously, we鈥檝e looked at language as a barrier to participation,鈥� Gomez explains, 鈥渂ut that was blown out of the water by using 天美网站传媒传媒 to engage different groups and educational partners in our district.鈥�
Making an Impact on SVUSD
With community feedback being vital to the education sector, Gomez made 天美网站传媒传媒 an essential step in the district鈥檚 operations. Like many of our education leaders, he knows that running an Exchange with stakeholders translates into decisions that get the community鈥檚 support.
When it comes to SVUSD鈥檚 equity initiatives, Gomez saw a real benefit in using 天美网站传媒传媒 to connect with their schools鈥� leadership. While working to find effective ways to implement equity in their district operations and student supports, candid discussions with their principals has made a big difference. 鈥淜nowing that an Exchange allows for that confidential feedback, we can hear how our leadership is really feeling when it comes to our equity initiatives,鈥� he shares. 鈥淭his helps us respond with impactful changes to supports and learning.鈥�
He also built Exchanges into their hiring process for principals. In the past, when an SVUSD principal position opened up, he hosted focus groups with teachers and parents to find out what the school wanted from its new leader. Now, as soon as a posting happens, HR uses templated Exchanges. 鈥淲e run the Exchange and gather feedback from our different stakeholder groups,鈥� he explains, 鈥渁nd that helps HR build a profile for hiring the next principal.鈥� Where focus groups are dependent on the teachers and parents who have the time and motivation to join the conversation, an Exchange is easily accessible and allows for everyone to have input on the new hire, all in just a few minutes.
Another place Gomez uses 天美网站传媒传媒 is in gathering feedback from staff on their professional development programs. Instead of using a Likert scale survey鈥攚here respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement with predefined answers鈥攖o get an idea of the value staff took from the training, an Exchange gives him a depth of data that helps SVUSD to deliver quality learning and help staff put it into practice in the classroom. 鈥淲e can get a good idea of what our staff鈥檚 takeaways are and also the supports they need to implement the training,鈥� he tells us.
Before 天美网站传媒传媒/After 天美网站传媒传媒
As far as how 天美网站传媒传媒 has impacted SVUSD, Gomez explains it to us in terms of a 鈥渂efore and after,鈥� and according to him, 鈥渢here's absolutely no comparison prior to using 天美网站传媒传媒.鈥� Did we mention Gomez is a 天美网站传媒传媒 champion? We鈥檒l let him tell you:
鈥淚 constantly sing the praises of 天美网站传媒传媒 to my colleagues. You truly don't know the benefits until you jump in. Once you experience how it reduces your processes, timing, and workload鈥攜ou'll never go back. It's never a question of, do we continue 天美网站传媒传媒 next year? It's, how are we going to use it differently, and how can we innovate from there?鈥�
鈥淚 constantly sing the praises of 天美网站传媒传媒 to my colleagues. You truly don't know the benefits until you jump in. Once you experience how it reduces your processes, timing, and workload鈥攜ou'll never go back. It's never a question of, do we continue 天美网站传媒传媒 next year? It's, how are we going to use it differently, and how can we innovate from there?鈥�
MICHAEL GOMEZ, Ed.D., Former District Coordinator, Assessment, Accountability, & New Teacher Induction at Saddleback Valley USD
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"Prior to 天美网站传媒传媒, when we would do community surveys, we had someone who would spend almost two months processing, analyzing, and charting the data. When we brought on 天美网站传媒传媒, she came to me and said, 'I think there's something wrong鈥擨 need all of the paperwork otherwise I鈥檒l be behind on our LCAP. I must have missed something.' No, you didn't miss anything鈥攖he Exchange takes care of that for us now!"
