L.B. Schools Pleased With High Marks in Districtwide Survey

LONG BEACH —  In an unusually broad 71,500-person survey, students and parents have given the Long Beach Unified School District marks so high even district officials have expressed some surprise.

But teachers scattered A’s and Fs across the district’s report card. Though nine of every 10 teachers found the district a good place to work, about half said they receive little recognition of how well they do their jobs.

“We have some work to do,” Supt. E. Tom Giugni told the school board Monday as his research staff reported the overall glowing results of a first-time survey of about half the district’s students and parents and three-fourths of its employees.

The $70,000 survey, which state education officials said is as comprehensive as they have seen by a large district, will serve as a benchmark to judge future progress and will be done again next March.

As a starting point it could not have been much better, district officials said.

“This would be marvelous material for realtors to have” to sell Long Beach houses, trustee Harriet Williams said. “This is a real indication that things are pretty good in our schools.”

For example, more than 86% of parents who responded to the fall, 1986, survey said their children were getting at least adequate instruction in reading, math and language.

70% Approval

In fact, the district received at least 70% approval from parents, students and teachers in nearly all of the eight categories seen as keys to an effective school. Those essential categories are leadership, instruction, curriculum, school climate, staff development, meeting students’ special needs, school interaction with the community, and the planning and evaluation of the educational program.

Survey results varied little regardless of ethnic group, although Asian and Latino parent and student responses were generally more positive. Perceptions also were about the same among parents whose children attend neighborhood schools and those who are bused to school. Both findings surprised the district, officials said.

The survey also provided a strong indication of the opposition the district could encounter in 1988, as it converts two schools to begin its experiment in year-round education. Just 36% of teachers said they would voluntarily work in a year-round school, while 54% of parents said they would allow their children to attend.

However, about two-thirds of Asian and Latino parents said they have no objections to year-round education. White and black parents were more reticent, giving 41% and 49% approval to their children’s attendance, respectively.

The district, which has a diverse racial mix of students, has said participation in the year-round program will be voluntary and that it will be placed at schools where acceptance is greatest. Some schools have registered 60% to 70% acceptance by parents, it reported.

The survey reflects the opinions of 36,319 students, 31,089 parents and 4,113 district employees and is a compilation of surveys customized to meet the special needs of the 78 participating schools. Surveys--devised by teachers, parents and some high school students--will be used to set goals for each school.

Concerns of Parents

Some districtwide items were included on all surveys. For instance, all parent surveys rated schools in areas such as adequacy of instruction, discipline, friendliness, upkeep, clarity of purpose, parent involvement and whether lines of communication are open.

The district’s overall marks were good in all areas, and to a degree they were too good to be true. They were unavoidably skewed to reflect the more upbeat appraisals of parents with elementary school children, since they returned about 78% of all the voluntary parent surveys. Parents of high school students, who were least positive about the district, made up only 9.2% of the sample. (Elementary students make up 60% of the district total.)

In the curriculum area, for example, this meant that while 76% of all parents thought the course work was effective, only 66% of high school parents agreed.

Still, the majority of the parents at all levels agreed that the quality of local education is good, said Mardel Kolls, assistant director of research.

“That’s a typical pattern you would see in any district,” Kolls said. Educational problems that may have seemed solvable at the elementary level seem less so as the child grows older, she said. In addition, the larger size of secondary schools makes them more imposing and reduces parent involvement with them, she said.

If the parent surveys were skewed toward the positive, the student surveys gave greater weight to the negative, because no student below fourth grade was polled, Kolls said. In curriculum, this meant that while 78% of elementary students thought curriculum was good, only 47% of high school students agreed. That gave an overall approval rating of 66%.

Giugni said the survey told him emphatically that he and other administrators have to do much more to open lines of communication with teachers and make them feel like valued professionals. Staff training and teacher involvement in decision making need to be emphasized, the superintendent said.

Teachers Point Out Needs

The survey found that only 42% of teachers think that lines of communication are open in the district, that 52% say their efforts are not satisfactorily acknowledged, that 55% think the way the are evaluated needs improving, and that only 58% have confidence in the district’s administration. Veteran teachers and high school instructors were most critical.

“I had not recognized that what is true on the national level is also true in Long Beach,” said Giugni, who was hired 14 months ago. “There needs to be more of a collegial relationship. And (employees) need to feel that they have some control over their destinies.”

Two new programs that formally recognize good work of employees are in place and more will be added, he said.

Don Goddard, president of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach, which represents 2,000 of the district’s 3,000 teachers, said he found few surprises in the survey, though he had expected year-round schools be get more support from teachers.

“Long Beach is a good place to work,” he said. “If classroom teachers are doing their jobs, they’re pretty much left alone and nobody is really banging on their heads. And you’ve got a good group of teachers to work with.”

However, teacher recognition has long been a problem, he said.

“I know there are some principals out there who make a point of commending teachers, but there are also principals out there who don’t see anything good with teachers no matter what they do,” Goddard said.

Researcher Kolls said the survey is especially significant because 50 students, 625 parents and more than 2,000 employees from school sites were involved in its development.

“Traditionally, this school system has been top down (in decision making),” she said. “It’s been what the community considered a closed system . . . . And I think the survey was one way to let the community know we’re interested in improving our effectiveness and that we value their opinions.”