R/W Week 2019: Manual students are more satisfied with their school

Stained glass outside of the principal’s office representing “M” for Manual. Photo by Jay Miller.

Reece Gunther
October 30, 2019

Each year, JCPS has students and parents take the Comprehensive School Survey as a way to gauge student and parent satisfaction with the school they attend. According to the district, the data is used to “direct dialogues and strategies for the future of JCPS” and “provides invaluable feedback to the board, principals, and teachers regarding the climate of their work/school environment.”

Both Manual and Male students have taken the survey every year since its creation in 1996, and the results from the 2019 survey, reflecting upon the 2018 school year show that overall, Manual students rated their school higher in almost every category when compared to Male students.

Male had three questions where they had an average score higher than Manual. One question asked students how much they agreed with the statement that “teachers ask us to summarize what we have learned in a lesson.”

In another, the question stated “I feel safe outside my school building before and after school.” Male scored .01 point higher on this question than Manual did. The last question showed that more Male students feel that their school is “equipped with up-to-date computers and other technology.”

Otherwise, Manual’s students have a more positive view of their school.

The school category results are the most notable differences. The survey was scaled from one to five, and five indicated that students, on average, strongly agreed with the respective statement.

Manual’s average for learning interesting and useful things at school was 2.98, while Male’s was 2.79. Manual students also indicated that they thought school was fun and that they enjoyed going to school more than Male students did, with about .20 point difference between the averages.

One of the biggest differences between scores for an individual question was on one that asked students to state how much they agreed that their principal was providing effective leadership. Manual’s average score was 3.06, and Male’s was 2.58, a .48 point difference.

For the most part, Manual and Male’s point differences are quite marginal, and the results are only somewhat indicative of the overall climate of the schools. Students from both schools will take a new survey in January.

These results came from JCPS’ CSS Data Tools which can be accessed here