Superintendent Kevin Kanauss announced the results of the school district’s parent survey during the Deptford board of education’s Oct. 15 meeting.
The survey was a forum of sorts created weeks ago to gauge interest in a number of topics – including school safety – that the board considered most important and worthy of discussion. The questionnaire was created by Kanauss and the district’s Coordinator of Communications Sal Randazzo.
“We had 182 responses in total,” Kanauss reported, “of which 74% of the people chose that they want to participate in the actual (board) meetings in person. So far, safety and security is the top topic that most families want to talk about.”
So, we’re going to kick that off in October.”
The superintendent then announced that the school board would like to meet on Tuesday, at a time to be determined. The district will select members from the community and send out an email once details are finalized.
“We’re going to invite individuals from each school to participate,” Kanauss explained. “Hopefully we’ll have two representatives from each school, the community, district personnel, myself and any board members that wish to participate.”
The survey was conducted to increase community outreach with parents, many of whom voiced concern and disappointment during the board of education’s August and September meetings about communication between themselves and the district. One area of concern was that parents were informed abruptly about changes to busing only a month before school started.
“I have been really disappointed with some of the communication,” said resident Josh Bowers at the September board session. “I feel like things are going out late in the day. We’re sharing bad news at 4:30 on a Friday which, to me, looks like we’re trying to duck people, and it looks like we’re trying to not have to answer the phone on the weekend, when parents are going to be upset about the bad news.”
According to Kanauss, the survey received good feedback and presented questions the district hopes it can answer.
“We had a very good turnout for the family forum survey,” he maintained. “A lot of positive comments, a lot of good feedback, and the 26% that don’t want to participate (in the meeting) did put in some good feedback and a lot of good questions for us to tackle. They look forward to what the community discusses and what the outcome will be.”
The next board of ed meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
