National Family Literacy Day

Virginia Williams, Possip reporter with a background in Elementary Education & Special Education, compiled a few ways that your family can maximize on literacy. 

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Happy National Family Literacy Day! Right now, many families across the country are buzzing with excitement over Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah or Christmas. But there’s another holiday on the horizon not to be overlooked! National Family Literacy Day is on November 1st, and this holiday is the perfect reason to reignite a love of reading within your home. 

 

Here are some ways to help make literacy a priority for your family:

 

 

1) Designate a reading time and space for your family.

With the presence of mobile devices and so many opportunities for ‘screen time’, it is more important than ever to create an intentional plan for reading. Create a fun, cozy space in your home where your children can read independently or together. Try to minimize distractions in this space, and consider including calm lighting or comfy pillows! You don’t need a new room – it could be a corner with a blanket. Just a space. Perhaps this ‘reading time’ occurs right before dinner or bedtime. Try your best to do it at the same time every day!  

 

2) Allow for choice.

Kids are often asked to read specific texts or passages for school. Make sure there are also plenty of opportunities for them to read whatever they want (within reason)! Consider providing your children with a variety of kid-friendly magazines, fiction texts, comic books, nonfiction texts or picture books. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library is a wonderful book-gifting program that sends a free book every month to participating children until they are five years old! Reach out to your school’s media specialist if you need support with registration. Another way to create the opportunity for choice is to ask your child: “Do you want to read to me, or would you like me to read to you?  Would you like to take turns reading the pages?” Occasionally, children deserve to simply sit back, relax and enjoy being read to, without being asked to perform in any way academically.      

 

3) Do it together!

Use this time as a way to bond as a family and connect with your children. Laugh and learn together as you discuss characters, topics and lessons from texts! That email can wait and those dishes in the sink can be dealt with later…take a moment to sit down and enjoy reading with your children! You may be surprised by what you learn about your kids during this special time.

 

What are some of your favorite tips for getting your family reading? Share with us on social media!

 

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Check these Possip resources for inclusive book ideas!

• Books for summer reading! 
• Books to celebrate AAPI heritage!
• Books to celebrate LGBTQ+!

 

Want to learn more family engagement tips? Join one of our live Possip demos!

The post National Family Literacy Day appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

Possip Live Demo

How is your school community able to share routine feedback? Possip can help you do just that! Register for our live demo to learn more!

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How Does Possip Meet the Core Competencies of Family Engagement?

Kerry Whitacre Swarr, Possip reporter and education equity consultant who is also working on her Ed.D. dissertation involving Possip, shared how Possip helps
family-facing staff improve their family engagement core competencies.   

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As a result of COVID, family engagement has increasingly been recognized as a key investment for schools and districts to meet basic needs and to support learning.  Family engagement is a skill that you learn through practice that too often isn’t part of preparation programs for teachers, principals, and other school-based roles.

In June 2022, NAFSCE developed a set of core competencies for the family engagement field that is applicable to any school staff that interacts with families. Possip is a great tool for family-facing professionals to build these competencies in their schools and district.

— There are eight competencies under four broad headings:
1. Reflect; 2. Connect; 3. Collaborate for Learning; and 4. Lead Alongside Families. 

 

Below is a crosswalk that shows how working with Possip and getting routine feedback from families will help you improve your family engagement practices and staff competencies.  

 

1. Reflect:  

Competency 1:  Respect, Honor and Value Families

Competency 2:  Embrace Equity Throughout Family Engagement

Possip helps family engagement professionals respect, honor, and value families by asking for regular feedback.  Possip recognizes that ALL families have expertise vital to the school community.  Possip’s texting platform allows schools to have two-way communication with families in over 100 different languages.

— Possip’s communication between families and schools via text is an equitable practice that reaches more families than other communication methods like email or mail. 

With Possip, no longer are schools just hearing from a small vocal minority of families.  Possip allows you to hear from all families helping family-facing professionals and school staff understand the impact of school policies, practices, structures, resource distribution, relationships, and individual beliefs that affect family experiences and learn how they can be improved–with family feedback. 

 

2. Connect:  

Competency 3:  Build Trusting Reciprocal Relationships with Families

Competency 4: Foster Community Partnerships for Learning and Family Wellbeing

Possip helps schools build trust through two-way, collaborative communication that is frequent, proactive, and personalized.  Possip helps schools build a welcoming environment where all voices are encouraged, listened to, and honored.  Schools and districts create bonus text questions to invite specific feedback and ideas like “are you planning to come to the upcoming parent-teacher conferences?” or “do you need help accessing our school’s technology platforms?”

Schools using Possip show they want to learn from all families recognizing that stronger relationships with families benefit students, teachers, the school, the district, and the entire community.  

Because of COVID, family engagement is even more important to address basic needs like food, access to technology, or mental health support. 

— Possip’s reports help schools identify individual family needs for followup and system needs from trends. 

Possip helps school communities understand what their families need and can then followup with individuals or all families with connections to community resources, offer ways for families to connect to each other, and bring diverse families together to have essential conversations. 

Possip also helps districts and schools tap into their assets of their families.  They can tap into ideas – of events, community resources, people – who can support their school.  When using Possip, schools are seeing parents as not just recipients of information and events, but as co-creators and co-ideators.

 

3. Collaborate for Learning:

Competency 5: Co-Construct Learning Opportunities with Families

Competency 6: Link Family and Community Engagement to Learning and Development

Possip also enables families to engage in conversations with schools about the developmental and academic needs of their children.  It allows families to share what is going well or not going well with their student’s learning. 

Possip helps schools follow up with families that need more support such as tutoring or after school enrichment and identify overall trends that the school needs to address to improve learning opportunities for all students like clarifying the homework policy, instructions about how to regularly monitor student progress on a technology platform, and how to help your child’s learning at home. Possip-using parents have shared that using Possip helps them think differently about their child’s school experience. 

— They can consider what is happening in their child’s school day and become a more meaningful contributor to their child’s school experience.

 

4. Lead Alongside Families:

Competency 7: Take Part in Lifelong Learning

Competency 8: Advocate for Systems Change

In Possip reports, real educators make recommendations and link resources such as professional development and blogs about best practices and research to improve your school’s family engagement practices.  Possip has a data dashboard for schools and districts to assess, evaluate and improve family and community engagement over time so you can measure your school’s improvement.  

Possip enables schools to get feedback from more families, more often than an annual school culture survey so that schools and families can make improvements in real-time and not wait until the end of the year when it is too late to make a difference.  Possip’s 360 product also gives schools a recommended communication to share with families about feedback and how the school has been responsive facilitating public understanding and learning—strengthening their school community together.  

Families and schools are also able to see where they have shared priorities and alignment.  Often, families and school teachers and leaders have shared desires. They just don’t have a way to know it.  Through Possip, schools are able to see if parents are having some of the same hopes for change they have, and tap into the power of the desire for parents to help make improvements.  Schools can use tools like Possip and NAFSCE’s Eight Family Engagement Core Competencies together to improve skills, knowledge, and understanding.

— You can use this across your school community to create more authentic, equitable school-family partnerships where everyone wins.  

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Want to learn more about maximizing family engagement in your school or district? Join our live Possip demo!

Source:  Caspe, M. (2022).  The Eight Family Engagement Core Competencies:  A Body of Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions for Family-Facing Professionals.  National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement.

The post How Does Possip Meet the Core Competencies of Family Engagement? appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

4 Philosophies that Shine Through in CSGF Stories of Impact

—“We really believe in the power of using data to drive the work you are doing.” – Julie Kennedy, Executive in Residence at Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF).

Last year, under the leadership of Julie Kennedy, Charter School Growth Fund piloted Possip Pulse Checks with 22 portfolio schools spanning 11 different networks. These schools heard from up to 80% of their families throughout the course of the year, gathering authentic feedback and praise! 

After just one year, the amount of schools sending Pulse Checks grew by over 300%! The initial 22 school leaders have expanded their use of Possip to include new stakeholders groups like, students and staff, and added additional campuses totaling over 90 participating schools! 

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We wanted to hear how it’s going! So, Possip and CSGF got together with a few of these charter school leaders. We talk about how Possip Pulse Checks are strengthening their school communities.  

From that conversation arose philosophies the Possip team and Possip partners believe deeply in, and repeat often! Here’s four! (disclaimer: some quotes have been condensed and slightly paraphrased for easy reading)

 

1. Feedback Helps You ‘Get in Front’ of Needs

Lenisha Roberts: “Carline was one that just slammed us… One thing we took away from feedback on carline last year is to be really intentional in how we address it this year. Our schools produced videos for families with tips for how to keep the carline going. We showed the ‘do’s and the don’ts’ and got ahead of it. We were more intentional about after school programs and aftercare because we know if we provide those programs, everyone won’t come at once to pick up their children. And we have some incentives at schools where they are doing carpooling.”

 

2. Feedback is a Gift

Dr. Trevor Ivey: “We’re only going to get better if we get feedback… we’re very clear on the parent side when we recruit that we believe feedback is a gift. It is a part of our policy for family engagement – and even our Title 1 plan. It’s in our Commitment to Success Pledge that parents and scholars sign. We make no apology for asking for your feedback! We get in the carline every time Possip goes out – every other Thursday afternoon. Our leaders have the eagle mascot holding a sign that says, “We need your feedback!”  We also do a reminder on our school wide text message app after the Pulse Check goes out.” 

 

3. Authentic Feedback Yields Confident Decision-Making

Barb Campbell: “Over 62% of our families speak Spanish, and the survey method we’ve been using – it’s like the annual survey with nationally normed data – that’s great, but we weren’t hearing from a representative sample of our families. And so to see that over 50% of our Possip feedback was in another language, I felt more confident in the data that we were hearing from the communities that we actually serve. And just an overwhelming amount of gratitude for a lot of positivity coming forward.The loudest voices can lead to an inaccurate perception of the family experience, so it’s allowed us to be more cognizant of the reality. 

 

4. Feedback is Routine & Ingrained in Your Culture

Kayleigh Colombero: “Possip is really helping us get information we might not have otherwise heard. Things as simple as, my student comes home everyday and says the classrooms are too cold.  It really has an impact on their experience! We want to know that and be able to address those things! Our leaders did a lot of thinking about making our after school programs more robust and making our messaging for after school a little bit clearer and a little bit earlier for parents… just by being able to hear from parents on a regular basis.”

“Our school gets a lot of praise for our teachers and I email that to all staff and get to highlight those teachers. And it’s such a wonderful thing, to be able to say, look at all the positive comments from parents about what you are doing everyday! It just really makes a big difference for our staff.” 

Check out more of the conversation! Kayleigh shares powerful stories from student Pulse Checks at Etoile. Trevor debriefs Liberty’s experience surveying staff routinely. 

Check out more of the conversation! Kayleigh shares powerful stories from student Pulse Checks at Etoile. Trevor debriefs Liberty’s experience surveying staff routinely. 

Check out our Possip Partner’s responses to this question: “What’s your favorite part of the Possip feedback reports?” 

The post 4 Philosophies that Shine Through in CSGF Stories of Impact  appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

4 charter school leaders answer on the spot: “What’s your favorite part of the Possip feedback reports?”

Last year, under the leadership of Julie Kennedy, Charter School Growth Fund funded a starter year of Possip Pulse Checks for 22 schools. Possip and CSGF got charter school leaders from across the country together to talk about the impact in year one, and why they’ve continued using Possip Pulse Checks to strengthen their schools. 

 

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Possip sat down with this wonderful group of folks: 

Read on to learn what those charter school leaders love about getting Possip feedback reports routinely, or watch the 3 minute conversation in action… 

 

 

Caitlin from Possip: What’s your favorite part of the report?

Kayleigh Colombero: “The critical feedback – the ones that need us to respond right away! The section that is hot . I go right to that before I read anything!” 

Dr. Trevor Ivey: “I go straight to the bar graph – the yeses and , mostlys and noes – and definitely get that sentiment rate first. But I do look at the 360 first – we get a 360 script.” 

Barb Campbell: “360 too… the amount of time spent on crafting staff notes, family notes, communicating out information. Being the person that distills all that information into a summary… having that done for you, it’s like, you just gave me back an hour of my Sunday morning. It’s very nice to see that in a concise format that can be shared out with stakeholders. And of course the hot topics!” 

Lenisha Roberts: “We are such a large network that the trends and recommendations have to be my most favorite because I look at it as a network – where am I seeing gaps or concerns as a trend so we can strategically look across the network and also see the trends with campuses. And the hot topics as well!”

 

Four philosophies really stood out in our partner’s stories of impact! Click here to check them out.

The post 4 charter school leaders answer on the spot: “What’s your favorite part of the Possip feedback reports?”  appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

Top 10 Feedback Trends from Teachers & School Staff this September

Amanda Richards, Possip’s Reporting Team Lead, analyzed data from our Pulse Checks! The results were able to provide us with the top 10 staff trends from this past September! 

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We know October can be a historically difficult month in schools. We also know that teachers and staff members have powerful ideas, feedback, and solutions to share! As we go into October, we wanted to share the top trends from September to reflect on and highlight staff voices.

This past month, we heard from over 6,473 staff members who responded through Possip Pulse Checks! 62% of staff members were happy this month. 

What is top of mind for teachers and school staff the past few weeks?

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Here are the top trends that teachers and staff are talking about: 

 

#1: Administration Feedback

Teachers and staff members shared a need for more support from their administration. For example, they want more positivity as leaders and more communication with staff. Some specific examples that were trending include taking away planning periods for meetings, school logistics feeling disorganized, unclear expectations for teachers, and a desire to improve morale on campus. A few trending words that came up in this topic frequently included consistency, respect, clarity, empathy, support, and transparency. 

 

#2: Teacher Workloads

Teachers feel like the workload is overwhelming and leading to teacher burnout. We heard that staff members need more staff members to divide the work. They have too much paperwork and administrative things being added to their plates. They also have feedback about the number of tasks they are having to bring home to complete daily. Overall, teachers shared that they feel overworked and need more time and support to complete their daily duties on campus. 

 

#3 Compensation

Teachers are asking for a pay increase to adjust for both the extra responsibilities that are being added to their roles, along with rising inflation costs. Also, we heard a lot from hourly staff members, like aids and paraprofessionals, that had feedback about not being paid consistently on time and that they also are advocating for a pay raise.  

 

#4: Student Discipline and Behavior

We heard that teachers feel a lack of discipline structures, systems, and support on campus and an increase in more severe behavioral situations. Many staff members are asking for the administration to be more intimately involved and supportive of these behavioral needs. In addition, they want more consistency and clarity on the consequences students receive. 

 

#5: Teacher Duties & Requirements

Teachers discussed having to take on mandatory duties like lunch duty, paperwork responsibilities, increased instructional expectations, club sponsorship, parent call requirements, and more. There were requests to decrease or eliminate many of these extra responsibilities to make teaching more sustainable and allow them to focus on academics and planning.

 

#6: Professional Development Sessions and Teacher Training

Staff members shared feedback on current training content and requested specific content for future training. More specifically, we also heard a lot of feedback on the logistics and timing of training. This includes the negative impact that pulling teachers and administration off campus for training has on the campus. They requested that training doesn’t require subs or staff members to leave during school hours. In addition, they requested that training communication is sent out clearly in advance to provide more preparation time. 

 

#7 Staff Shortages and Teacher Vacancies

Teachers shared concerns about unfilled positions on campus and substitute teacher shortages. This had led to increased class sizes, teachers losing planning periods to cover classes, and a higher workload for all staff members. We heard requests for a district focus on hiring and recruitment of teachers and requests to speed up the process of getting new hires on campus.  

 

#8: Planning Time

Teachers shared feedback about losing their planning time consistently and that things like a coach or IEP meetings are taking place instead. Teachers are requesting having an extended planning period incorporated into the school schedule. The want allotted planning days to catch up, protecting planning time from meetings or other conflicts, and using PD time occasionally for extra teacher planning. It was clear that teachers have been taking home a majority of their planning and doing it outside of school hours, and feel that it should be a focus area to protect teacher planning time and work-life balance. 

 

#9: IEP/504 Support

Teachers are seeing a higher volume of students who qualify for special education services or 504 support. They are requesting more resources and training from school SPED departments. Also, we also heard staff members wanting more consistent best practices for implementing IEPs and 504s for students, along with more individualized support for students. Teachers also want to ensure they are all fully equipped to understand each individual student’s plan. They need more time and support to familiarize themselves with each plan. Overall, teachers are requesting more support to meet every student’s needs in their classrooms.

 

#10: Curriculum Feedback

Teachers provided feedback on new curriculum they are using this year, with math-specific curriculum being a frequently discussed content. We heard requests for more curricular integration between grade levels and content. In addition, they want more advanced class options for students, and more resources like access to library books to support the curriculum. Teachers commented also on the speed and pacing of the content. Also, they wanted more time to plan and customize the curriculum to fit the needs of their classrooms. 

 

If you have questions about these trends, how to resolve them in your school or have feedback on our trends blog, please reach out to the Possip team here! 

 

Want to see what was top priority for families last month? Check out our Family Trends Blog!

The post Top 10 Feedback Trends from Teachers & School Staff this September appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

September Family Trends

Amanda Richards, Possip’s Reporting Team Lead, analyzed data from our Pulse Checks! The results were able to provide us with the top 10 family trends from this past September! 

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October is here! With a new month comes new weather, new opportunities, and a new Possip trends blog! We are excited to share our monthly trends and insights from Possip families over the month of September.

 

This data represents comments from over 91,000 people who shared through Possip over the past month. On average, 82% of families said they were happy with their child’s school this past month.

 

Before we dig into the top trends this month, what are some key takeaways we noticed:

1. Academics continues to be the top focus! This was a highlight in our back-to-school trends blog. Families are still wanting to know about academic support opportunities and stay close to their child’s learning. 
2. Safety is top of mind! Families are continuing to push for more safety and security on campus. 
3. Carline is still a big point of feedback, but not as big of a topic as in past years this time of years. School communities still have carline as a top 10 trend. However, it’s lower in the trends line-up than in past years. 

 

 

Here are the top 10 feedback trends parents and families shared over the past 6 weeks.

 

#1: Academic Support

The main topics families are discussing include requests for tutoring options and more interventions to push student learning. In addition, they want more rigorous school work and certainty that students will be ready for the next school year academically. Families also shared a desire for teachers to be more communicative and proactive with families. Especially when students fall behind or need academic support. 

#2: Teacher Feedback

Families discussed having more highly-qualified teachers on campus. Also, they want staff to have positive attitudes towards students and families and more training to teachers. We also heard that families want more consistent teaching and consistent full-time teachers, not substitutes, in classrooms. This is a newer trend this year as compared to prior years.  This makes sense given conversations about teacher burnout and teacher shortages.

#3: Curriculum Feedback

Some trends we noticed include wanting professionally written curriculum for students and more engaging curriculum. In addition, they want an increased parent voice and involvement in the curriculum choices. Also, they want higher quality curriculum and learning standards. Families want access to all class syllabi and asked questions about how they can access the curriculum. In addition, families shared more specific requests like less screen time, more electives, and more textbook usage. 

#4: Campus Security

We also heard that families are concerned about fights on campus. So, they want more staff in certain areas to prevent that from happening. In addition, families asked many questions about safety practices on campus. They also advocated for more safety procedures like backpack checks and metal detectors as prevention methods. 

#5: Transportation Needs

We heard that the bus schedules are not consistent or reliable. For example, buses come too early or too late. Families are advocating for these issues to be resolved as soon as possible. We also heard that families want to contact the transportation services directly, but are having difficulty doing so. Additionally, in some of our attendance work with our partners, transportation barriers are a top driver of attendance challenges for families.

#6: Carline Logistics

Families are mostly worried about the safety of their students and pedestrians during carline, asking for more detailed plans for traffic control, and a desire to uphold the carline rules for all families since some cars are skipping or going on their own drop-off path. 

#7: Teacher Communication

We heard that families are craving a consistent way to stay in contact with the teacher and gave ideas like using daily planners, take-home folders, or updating tech platforms consistently. Teachers gave praise to some teacher’s communication styles, but the inconsistency from classroom to classroom was a point of feedback. Families are wanting to clearly understand teacher expectations for their students better, both academically and behaviorally, and they are asking for more communication to help them stay in touch and feel connected. 

#8: Extracurricular Activities

Families also asked for more information on how to get their students involved in current club offerings and want to know all the opportunities that exist. They shared feedback about communication from coaches not being effective and needing more information on how to sign up for extracurriculars and the dates of events proactively. Families discussed the desire for these clubs and extracurricular opportunities as a needed social outlet for their students.

#9: Homework Assignments

Generally, we found that families are asking for less homework for their students this year. Although we did hear some families ask for more homework, the majority of families feel their students are overloaded with work at night and weekends. Parents also asked for homework to be in textbooks or be given examples so they can help their student make meaning of it at home. We also heard that families want more clarity on homework assignment expectations, and how students can get support with homework if they are struggling.  It has been a few years since homework was a big topic for families – but we have some resources that may help school leaders or families navigate homework: https://possip.com/category/homework/ 

#10: School Communication Tools

The last trend in the top 10 this month is around feedback with communication tech tools like apps and communication platforms. Specifically, we heard that translation tools are not working well to reach all families, messages on apps are not being responded to, and there are too many apps for families to keep track of. Families want things streamlined into one platform and want to know who to go to for support if they are having tech troubles. We also heard that social media communication is not effective for all families and some are feeling left out of the loop if they are not on social media. 

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Possip shares these trends in the hopes that they help you have the tools, information, and ideas to support your students, families, staff and school.  We love being a partner – so just complete the form below to chat more!

 

Want to learn more about parent and family needs? Join our live Possip demo!

The post September Family Trends appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

The Best School Boards Listen

Shani Dowell, Possip CEO & Founder, shares how Possip can help school boards listen to their parents, students, and communities.

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The best school boards listen. 

School boards get a bad rap – some deserved, much undeserved.  A school board is a mash up of two things that are historically disliked – committees and politics.  So it’s a wonder that school boards can be effective as they are, when they are.

In these times of countless impossible decisions, politics at a fever pitch, the politicization of most things in education (curriculum, sick policies, staffing), school boards have a lot to navigate.

When you have people shouting from every direction, it’s tempting to put your head in the sand and ignore all of them.

At Possip we get the opportunity to work with school boards who are truly interested in the perspectives of their constituencies and communities. 

And we see the power when they listen. 

 

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School boards can listen – with boundaries and without boundaries.  Right now the way many school boards listen is through time limited public comments from those who can make it to evening meetings – and social media in all of its echo chamber, pithy soundbite, and unrepresentative peril.  

But what if school boards could give anyone an opportunity to weigh in on a big decision, hear from as many people as possible, in their language, and not have to cap what they share.  What if school boards could also hear from them in an easy and accessible way.

Possip partners have found it helpful to have school board members bring questions to families, students, and staff that represent big decisions they are about to make.

•       COVID planning protocols
•       Curriculum decisions
•       Attendance policies and calendar changes 

 

How do they do it? They use a surveying and feedback platform like Possip.  While there are a few surveying options (Google links work), Possip is helpful for a few reasons:

1 – They know the people taking the survey are actual parents or community members of their district

2 – they are able to get feedback in the language of their communities

3 – they can see differences by school type

4 – they can quickly get feedback from well over 25% of their population within 2 days

5 – they can get rich reporting and insights on the back end

6 – with fully text-based delivery – they can engage families without Internet or smart phone access

 

So ultimately it helps them make more decisions, more quickly, and less painfully.

While listening isn’t always easy, especially on hot topics that inspire passion from large groups of people, if your school board creates systems for listening, you can be more successful.

The best school boards listen.

 

Want to know more tips on amplifying your school’s voice? Join our live Possip Demo!

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CSGF and Possip: Stories of Impact

Join us for a conversation with four innovative Charter School leaders.  Learn how their schools are using Possip to take a data-driven approach to family engagement and the impact this has shown on their communities.

The post CSGF and Possip: Stories of Impact appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.