Survey: Saugus district students feel behavior, respect are issues

District staff discussed survey results, possible misinterpretations during governing board meeting

A survey conducted by the Saugus Union School District showed that students feel that their peers do not behave in class, they don’t feel important and they don’t feel respected by their peers.

District staff discussed the survey at Tuesday’s governing board meeting and how the results of the survey could be misleading.

Michelle Velikorodnyy, principal at Charles Helmers Elementary, was one of the speakers and said she was saddened by some of the data at first, but after speaking with the students, she learned that some of them simply interpreted the questions differently than intended.

“Generally speaking, our children are in a place where they’re more critical of themselves than I think we would be,” Velikorodnyy said, “and their eye of things is maybe interpreted differently because they are children.”

The survey was completed by students, staff and parents in April. Just under 5,100 students completed the survey from grades three through six, roughly 1,600 more than completed it last year. Superintendent Colleen Hawkins said adding third grade this year was a big reason for that growth.

Of the students surveyed, 36% either agreed or strongly agreed with the question, “Students treat each other well at my school.” When asked if students behave so that teachers can teach, the number of students who agreed or strongly agreed was also 36%. When asked if they feel like an important part of their school community, 51% either agreed or strongly agreed.

Hawkins said that because the Saugus school district is a data-driven district, she felt it was important to hear about “the good, the bad and the ugly of that data.”

“I think the important part about having data, regardless of its outcome, is that you use it and you address it,” Hawkins said.

That was one of the tasks that she has set upon

the principals, that regardless of the possible misinterpretations of the questions, it is clear that there are things that can be improved. The results of the survey are going to be used to help create the next school year’s local control and accountability plan.

Hawkins was particularly concerned with the responses to the peer respect question, but in her previous talks with students, she said she wasn’t surprised that the issue is present. Students have told her about troubling behaviors on the playground during recess, including “roast battles.”

“Name calling that is supposed to be funny, but is hurtful, those sorts of activities, and most of the time they’re happening during recess on the playground,” Hawkins said. “I don’t know exactly how to address it because I know we are not teaching that in our classrooms, nor do we allow that. And there are consequences about teaching kids how to not do those sorts of things.”

She went on to say that while some students have expressed concerns over these behaviors, they say that it can be difficult for them to stand up to their peers.

“There is a great deal of fear of the peer-to-peer case that they just don’t want to engage,” Hawkins said. “They don’t want to be the person who stands up for another person or stands up for themselves because they really just want to see it go away. And I think you’re seeing that even with adults with things. They’re less likely to be the people to speak out or speak up, because how will they be perceived? How will they be treated? What will be said about them?”

Board President Matt Watson thanked district staff for being willing to ask “the hard questions.” One of his recommendations was to remove the “neutral” response to questions, noting that researchers have been leaning against allowing that as a response.

“It discourages people from truly expressing what they feel,” Watson said, a notion that multiple people in the room agreed with.

As far as students feeling important, Velikorodnyy said that after talking to the students in more depth about that, she found that many of them felt it was a status question. Because the students weren’t in leadership roles or they weren’t the teacher or the principal, she said, they assumed that they were not important.

The hope, Hawkins said, is that the district and school staff can work to improve how students view themselves, and teach them to realize that they are important just for being them.

“That question hit home for me,” Hawkins said. “But then as I talked to several of the principals recently, and they’ve been talking to the kids, the kids feel important differently than we would, which was fascinating to me. ‘I’m not popular,’ is how they viewed themselves.”

Velikorodnyy added that the bad behavior that students were pointing out was simply having to be told to quiet down at times.

Carin Fractor, director of education services, said the next step will be to have further talks with students on how changes can be made and how they can best be served.

“I think now our next step here is really finding out from the students, ‘What does that mean and what can we do?’” Fractor said. “Because they’re the ones with the great ideas, they’re the ones with the solutions. And so it’s a great example of going to the students and really digging deeper and using this not for face value, but finding out what’s behind that response.”