A survey among Eudora staff shows that the district’s 2020-2021 COVID-19 mitigation plan received slightly negative reviews, but the district received positive reviews for its workplace climate and leadership.
The survey was presented to the School Board Thursday evening by a representative from Patron Insight, an outside company hired by the district to help with strategic planning. Patron Insight distributed a 12- to 15-minute survey to staff members in mid-February.
There were 195 respondents. Roughly 250 individuals are employed by the school district.
“With the exception of the fall 2020 plan, there were mostly kind of encouraging thoughts about the district,” said Ken DeSieghardt, the representative for the company.
The district has participated in this survey for four years. Usually, the questions revolve around how well staff members feel supported and if they believe the school district is a healthy work environment. This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Patron Insight added a series of questions about the district’s response and reopening plan.
Respondents received a statement and then ranked whether they strongly disagreed, disagreed, neither agreed or disagreed, agreed, or strongly agreed. For example, in the section focused on the district’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the statements was, “The Fall 2020 plan worked well for students and their families.”
The responses for each question were then ranked out of five in a report presented to the school board Thursday night.
Most teachers said they thought the district’s communication surrounding COVID-19 has been mostly positive. The district received a 3.94 out of 5 points for its response to the spring 2020 shut down, especially given the short notice.
However, the return to schools during fall 2020 was where staff members were critical. One of the statements said, “The Fall 2020 plan worked well for teachers and staff.” The score was 2.81 out of 5, as reported by Patron Insights.
Since the 2020-2021 academic calendar began, the school district has had to follow a modified hybrid schedule — or in some cases, completely shut down a school — to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. In late February, the district moved back into a complete in-person instruction model after it received approval from Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health.
In total, the school district reported roughly 140 cases of the coronavirus among its students and staff for the 2020-2021 school year.
“It suggested to me that there some people who just didn’t get what they thought should be the plan,” DeSieghardt said. “Hopefully we won’t have to be addressing this soon and so that will hopefully be water under the bridge.”
The next questions were oriented around workplace climate and leadership. The series of questions around workplace climate received mostly positive reviews, closer to 4 out of 5 points. The series of statements had mostly positive reviews as well, DeSieghardt said, but there was a drop in how well staff members felt supported by the School Board.
The survey also asked staff members how well target areas from the district’s strategic plan are being addressed. This year, staff placed technology first. The last was organizational strength in properly using resources to address the district’s goals.
There were no questions or commentary from board members following the presentation. Mark Chrislip, the president of the school board, thanked DeSieghardt for his work.
“Thank you for taking us through that,” Chrislip said. “There was a lot of valuable information.”
Reach reporter Nicole Asbury at [email protected].
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