Results from the Gasconade County R-2 Culture and Climate Survey were discussed at the Nov. 18 Board of Education meeting.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Staci Johnson presented the topic in her report.

“The biggest section of my report is the Staff, Student, and Family Culture and Climate Survey and the Focus Group Data,” Johnson said. “The survey data is a lot of data.”

Johnson color-coded responses to help the board understand the results of the four-point scale.

“Overall, our survey results are slightly down from last year, though not to the extent that I’m worried about a specific area. We saw some improvement in some areas and others went down a little bit, but overall we are still above three in almost every single category,” Johnson said. “We will break down the data and meet with our teams to go through it.”

She added that most of the time the return data results in more questions.

“What’s the cause of this,” she said as an example. “We want to talk to others about why the data came out the way it did so we can make plans moving forward.”

Focus groups this year included all four buildings.

“We had fifth-grade focus groups at both OES and GES,” Johnson said. “All the way up to high school students. I also had a parent focus group I met with and a staff focus group. The one thing I thought was a positive thing from the entire process is that all three of those demographics are really in alignment with what they care about and where they think our district needs to go, what our strengths are and areas we need to improve. I think that’s a good thing.”

All focus groups discussed facilities.

“Obviously with running bond issues the past couple of years, that was a hot topic of discussion and we got really good feedback on that from parents and students. So we will be looking at that data and when we reconvene the long-range facilities committee, we can bring that data to them for them to look at as well.”

Another result of the survey is both parents and teachers want to improve parent engagement in the learning process.

“I think we are still a little bit stalled — when I say ‘we’ I mean public schools in general — coming out of COVID and getting parents and teachers connected and working together on kids’ education,” Johnson said. “That’s been a project we’ve been working on the side, coming up with solutions to see what we can do. We may be coming up with ideas for that.”

Johnson asked the board to read the information and email her questions.

The focus groups also discussed staff retention, which brought forth the topic of a school-ran daycare (See related story on page 1).