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BRIGHTON CSD School climate surveys helped New York’s Brighton Central School District identify key priorities for its strategic plan, enabling district leaders to embody a culture of kindness and respect.
C R E AT I N G A S A F E A N D S U P P O RT I V E S C H O O L E N V I RO N M E N T
BRIGHTON CSD CREATING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
2 W W W. K 1 2 I N S I G H T. C O M
THE LANDSCAPEThe safety, health, and wellness of its students is a primary concern for the Brighton Central School District.
Superintendent Dr. Kevin McGowan and his staff have worked hard to build a caring culture, in which students
treat each other with kindness and respect. That should come as no surprise, given the community’s rich
history of tolerance and inclusion.
Located in a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., where
luminaries such as Frederick Douglass and Susan
B. Anthony once fought for equal rights and social
justice, Brighton is an economically diverse community
that values education and inclusiveness for families
and students. Its residents include faculty and staff
from the area’s many colleges, including the University
of Rochester and RIT, as well as refugees looking for
a better life for their children. School district leaders
make a point to serve these communities equally.
“This has always been a place where different types
of families, including same-sex couples, have been
embraced,” McGowan says. “Long before marriage
equality was achieved, it was a place that offered same-
sex partner benefits to employees. In more recent years,
our community has been a champion of transgender
rights, and our school system passed the first board
policy of its kind supporting transgender students
and staff—without any objection or controversy at all.
It was just a reflection of who we are.”
BRIGHTON CSD CREATING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
3 W W W. K 1 2 I N S I G H T. C O M
With a focus on empathy and inclusion, it was only
natural that Brighton would form a committee
to discuss students’ character development. The
committee includes
representation from
a broad range of
stakeholder groups, such
as churches, temples, the
local police force, town
board members, and
school staff.
“We also have a wellness
committee focused on
very similar concepts,”
McGowan says. “At some
point, all of this work
merged into what we
call the Brighton Beliefs.
It’s our own homegrown
character education
program. We’re constantly
instilling the qualities of integrity, self-control,
respect, kindness, and responsibility throughout our
students’ K12 experience.”
The Brighton Beliefs form the basis for the district’s
identity, and they model the culture that district
leaders have tried to instill.
“At the classroom level, these beliefs inform how
teachers approach their classroom rules,” McGowan
says. “At the school level, principals work to set
expectations for everyone in the building. We have
made these beliefs a part of every conversation,
and they are even printed on our letterhead. We’re
constantly preaching this mantra of supporting each
child and every family.”
Not content with the success they had already
achieved, district leaders wanted to know how
they could further improve the learning climate for
students. McGowan and his staff were eager to learn
what students, parents, and staff thought about what
programs were working within the district—and what
areas still needed improvement. This information
would help shape Brighton’s strategic plan for the
next several years.
THE CHALLENGE
We’re constantly instilling the qualities of integrity, self-control, respect, kindness, and responsibility throughout our students’ K12 experience.”DR. KEVIN McGOWAN, SUPERINTENDENT
www.bcsd.org
Brighton, New York
3,700 K12 students in four schools
GOALS• Gather feedback from stakeholders about what’s working and what can be improved.• Use this information to develop a strategic plan with yearly goals and objectives.• Build on the district’s already impressive culture of kindness and respect.
APPROACHEngage all stakeholder groups—students, staff, parents, and the larger community—with school climate surveys and focus groups.
PRODUCTS
Engage
BRIGHTON CSD CREATING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
4 W W W. K 1 2 I N S I G H T. C O M
Engage from K12 Insight
Learn how your district can do this at www.k12insight.com/engage.
THE SOLUTIONBrighton Central School District partnered with
K12 Insight to administer a series of school climate
surveys using the company’s industry-leading Engage
platform. Through Engage, K12 Insight helps district
leaders create reliable, third-party surveys that ask
insightful questions and elicit honest feedback from
stakeholders, then analyze the results to help district
leaders draft a plan for meaningful change.
With K12 Insight’s assistance, Brighton developed
an initial school climate survey in fall 2015 to
gather community feedback in several formats and
languages, both online and on paper.
“We took those results and worked with K12 Insight
to develop an additional survey in spring 2016,”
McGowan says. This follow-up survey explored the
findings from the first survey in more detail. “We
asked stakeholders to weigh in further on areas
that we wanted more clarification about,” he says.
“We also proposed ideas for how we could address
concerns that came up in the first survey and asked
people what they thought about those strategies.”
Surveys as conversationsBrighton Central School District in N.Y. used K12 Insight’s Engage
survey solution to learn how safe students felt in school.
BRIGHTON CSD CREATING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
5 W W W. K 1 2 I N S I G H T. C O M
What Brighton learned Overall, the community feedback Brighton received
was extremely positive. “People were very supportive
of what we were doing in our schools,” McGowan
says. “But as we drilled down into the data, we found
specific areas where we felt we could do more.”
For instance, although students reported that they
felt safe at school, the surveys revealed that bullying
off campus was still a problem—especially cyber
bullying. This insight has prompted McGowan and his
staff to place more emphasis on teaching students
about proper online behavior.
District leaders also recognized opportunities to
engage students in more advanced coursework and
use more technology for instruction.
“Seventy-four percent of our students leave us
having taken at least one AP class in high school,”
McGowan says. “That’s really good, but we’d like to
see that number become even higher. We’d also like
to see more participation in advanced coursework
among traditionally underrepresented students. That
was an area we thought we could do better, and the
survey results confirmed that.”
Moving from data to action Once Brighton had the data from its surveys, the
district convened a focus group consisting of some
50 educators, parents, and administrators. “We
involved stakeholders very deeply in that process,”
McGowan says. “They helped us determine what we
should do, and then our leadership team developed
the how and the why.”
From this process emerged a broad strategic
plan, called the “Brighton Blueprint,” with annual
objectives addressing five areas of focus: 1. safety, security, and wellness; 2. rigorous coursework for all students; 3. creativity and innovation; 4. early childhood programming; and 5. instructional technology.
Under safety, security, and wellness, for instance,
strategies for the 2016-17 school year include
studying how to provide a school day that meets
the developmental needs of students (including a
later start time) and providing additional security
measures for after-school activities, while still
maintaining an open and welcoming environment.
Under creativity and innovation, one of the goals
for the 2017-18 school year is to identify real-world
problem solving opportunities for students to
engage in with a global community.
Key benefits of the surveys Collecting feedback from the school community not
only ensures that Brighton remains on the right path,
it also paves the way for stakeholder support.
“Many of the strategies that we included in our
strategic plan were ideas that we as a leadership
team believed we should do,” McGowan says. “But
having that data triangulated by the community, and
confirming that these ideas were their desires as
well, helps us earn buy-in among parents and staff.”
The surveys were “essential in demonstrating to the
community that this wasn’t just one person’s plan,”
he adds. “It was a community plan for building on
our success.”
BRIGHTON CSD CREATING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
6 W W W. K 1 2 I N S I G H T. C O M
Moving forward, McGowan and his staff are working
to implement the strategies outlined in the Brighton
Blueprint. Their measure for success is whether they
can recommend specific programs or changes based
on the work they do in each of those five focus areas.
Listening to stakeholders’ concerns and using this
feedback in their decision making reflects Brighton’s
values of openness and inclusion. It has strengthened
an already close-knit community—and K12 Insight’s
expertise in survey development and data analysis
have played a key role in this success.
“K12 Insight staff members were ‘third party’ experts
who we could count on for thoughtful discussion,
prompt responses, and comprehensive analysis of
our data,” McGowan concludes. “K12 Insight was
important to our development of an objective data
set that could represent community sentiments in
driving more authentic and meaningful strategic
planning.”
THE FUTURE
RESULTS A strategic plan that reflects the community’s wishes and priorities. Stakeholder buy-in and support for the district’s initiatives.
A decision-making process that reflects the district’s values of openness and inclusion.
K12 Insight staff members were ‘third party’ experts who we could count on for thoughtful discussion, prompt responses, and comprehensive analysis of our data.” DR. KEVIN McGOWAN, SUPERINTENDENT