Farmington

FPS survey measures ‘customer’ satisfaction

By David Wallace
C & G Staff Writer

FARMINGTON — The results of a survey taken at the end of November gave the Farmington Public Schools some insight into what parents and residents think of the job the district is doing, plus survey takers’ priorities and concerns.

“This is all part of the district’s ongoing efforts to increase ‘customer’ satisfaction and engagement with our parents and community members,” said Diane Bauman, the district’s director of school and community relations.

The district plans to use the results in a variety of ways, including in decisions about where to use its resources.

The district used Cobalt Community Research to conduct the study.

“Cobalt is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit coalition with a mission to provide research in education,” said Bauman. “Cobalt was developed to meet the research needs of schools, local governments and nonprofit organizations.”

Bauman said the district started doing surveys every five years in 1995, but this survey was different.

“It provides a much stronger baseline data set for the district to work from,” said Bauman. “This assessment is powered by the patented technology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index.”

William SaintAmour, Cobalt’s executive director, explained the survey’s details, which focused on curriculum, principals, teachers and communication.

“Surveys are always perception data. Perceptions may be accurate in terms of what’s really going on. Perception may not be accurate. But the important thing is perception does drive behavior,” said SaintAmour.

“Bottom line: The district did very well. The performance was very solid, especially looking at the benchmarks,” said SaintAmour.

The district received two sets of data.

“The first was really a random sample of the community based on voter registration. It was designed to give you a statistical snapshot of what’s going on in the community overall, so capturing not only the views of parents, but also parents who have children in private schools, people who don’t have children in the district and so on,” said SaintAmour.

“We had a very strong response. We had 367 residents send surveys back. That gives you a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percent, based on the analysis that we use,” said SaintAmour.

The second data set tracked survey responses from the district’s electronic mailing list, which goes mostly to parents.

“We had over 1,800 responses from that,” said SaintAmour.

The survey measured satisfaction on a scale of 100, though the numbers are not percentages, but scores compared to benchmarks.

“The parents in the district who have children in Farmington Public Schools gave you a 64. The community overall gave you a 63,” said SaintAmour, who said those were “very solid scores.”

“To put that in context … residents give the state of Michigan a 35. People give the county governments a 51. Across the state, parents have given the school districts a 65 overall, and communities have given their schools a 57,” said SaintAmour.

Bauman said the 64, just one point less than the statewide score, falls within the margin of error.

In tracking factors that make up the school district’s image, most of the categories — “prepares students,” “well-trained employees” — were about at the statewide benchmarks, and benchmarks established for larger districts. The two lowest results were “well-managed” and “trustworthy administrators,” which had scores in the 60s among the benchmarks and which hovered around 60 for the district.

“These are affected by the experiences that folks have had over the last few years,” said Saint-Amour.

“We went through a lot of changes,” noted Bauman, who said the scores are still high.

SaintAmour broke down the perceptions about the district’s curriculum.

“The areas that were particularly strong for the district: social studies, reading, music and art. Areas that were not as strong — world foreign language, computer skill development, level of challenge — were all a little bit on the softer side,” said SaintAmour.

People had the most confidence in the principals’ knowledge and instructional leadership, while innovation and openness received lesser scores that still closely resembled the benchmarks.

“And again, these are all perception scores, so one of the things to ask yourself is, ‘Is this something that’s a performance issue, or is this a perception issue?’ Because you address them in different ways,” said SaintAmour.

Survey respondents most lauded the ease of contacting teachers and their caring for students, while teachers’ responsiveness to students and parents were lower, but consistent with the benchmarks.

The district’s communication scores were mostly higher than the benchmarks.

“The ease and understanding (of) information was particularly high. Relevance of information was a little bit lower,” said SaintAmour.

The district intends to review the data further and make plans for improvement.

“I’m just pleased that there’s a plan in place that will take this forward and kind of peel back these initial findings and go into a great deal more research into some of the more specific elements to this,” said Treasurer Frank Reid.

“I look forward to seeing those results,” he said.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer David Wallace at dwallace@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1053.