THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 30, 1994 TAG: 9411300440
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
If you want the rosiest picture of Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County schools, don't ask their students.
Fourth- through 12th-graders gave their schools fairly high marks on the written surveys they recently completed. But students' opinions on issues such as safety and expectations were markedly lower than parents' and staff members'.
The results of the surveys were presented to the Board of Education this week.
Six out of 10 responding fourth- through 12-graders thought their school was safe and orderly, according to the report. About 70 percent of parents thought the same, and 73 percent of faculty and staff.
In the early grades, kindergarten through third, 86 percent of students said they felt safe.
Students also had the lowest opinions on their principal's leadership, the level of expectation about student and staff performance and the relationship between home and school.
Assistant Superintendent Mack McCary said the results don't necessarily reflect reality but point to students' perceptions of their educational experiences.
``I think kids are closer to what's really going on'' than parents, said McCary, who added that children in that age group are also generally more critical.
The districtwide surveys of parents, students and staff, which had student response rates of more than 90 percent, were distributed this spring to give officials a sense of what they were doing right and wrong at their schools.
Individual school results were not released even to board members. McCary said the point was to let schools use the information for their own purposes.
The totals reported to the board combined results from the schools and from specific questions about broader issues. The safety totals, for instance, included responses about physical safety and the security of property, McCary said.
The questionnaires reflect a broader effort of the schools to treat their students as ``customers,'' McCary said. ``We want to make that a tradition. Like businesses do market research every year.'' ILLUSTRATION: SCHOOL SURVEY RESULTS
Summary of results from district-wide survey covering Elizabeth
City-Pasquotank County's 10 schools (Faculty and staff and
kindergarten through third grade students also were surveyed, but
complete comparative results were not available).
PRINCIPAL SHOWS STRONG LEADERSHIP: (Students grades 4-12: 58 percent
strongly or somewhat agreed. Parents: 76 percent strongly or
somewhat agreed.)
HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR STUDENTS, STAFF: (Students grades 4-12: 76
percent agreed. Parents: 80 percent agreed.)
SCHOOL SAFE AND ORDERLY: (Students grades 4-12: 60 percent agreed.
Parents: 70 percent agreed.)
GOOD HOME-SCHOOL RELATIONS: (Students grades 4-12: 72 percent
agreed. Parents: 79 percent agreed.)
by CNB