Attracting, developing, and retaining highly effective teachers is one of the keys to success for any school. BoardOnTrack recommends that schools survey their staff one to two times per year to assess:

1. The staff members’ level of job satisfaction and morale.
2. Their perceptions of the school as a work place and community.
3. The effectiveness of investments the school has made in professional development or staff time and attention.

While useful to both groups, staff surveys can have different (if strongly related) value for the CEO versus board members:

Suggested Timeline

BoardOnTrack suggests one to two surveys per year. (More can lead to “overload” for staff and make it hard for the CEO and board to invest the time necessary to fully analyze the results.)

Surveys should occur late enough in the year to provide a clear read on how things are going, but early enough to allow school leadership to adjust course based on the data, if needed.

BoardOnTrack recommends surveying between November and February, based on your specific school calendar.

Survey Content

The board should be seeking to answer “top level” governance questions through the survey, such as:

• What is the current overall state of our staff culture?
• Are our teachers happy working at the school?
• Do they feel like the school/leadership supports their growth and their success?
• Do teachers feel they have access to the resources they need to do their jobs?
• Would they recommend the school to a friend as a great place to work?

The CEO should be seeking to answer these top-level questions as well as more “nitty-gritty” management-level questions such as:

• How effective were the investments we made in professional development (e.g., time, funding, and energy invested)?
• How effective are the instructional coaching activities we undertake? (E.g., lesson plan feedback, feedback on lesson delivery, modeling, collaborative planning, data protocols, etc.)
• How much do teachers feel our approaches to discipline and behavior promote academic achievement?
• How do teachers see the various family involvement efforts made by your school?
• Where would teachers like to see more professional development?
• How well are the operations and finance staff meeting teacher needs?
• Do staff member’s levels of satisfaction or morale differ for different populations within the staff? (E.g., particular grade levels or departments, staff who have been at the school longer vs. those who are newer to the school, more experienced teachers vs. less experienced teachers).

One useful step for CEOs to take in preparing their survey is to make a list of all the major professional development and other initiatives they have undertaken in the last year and design questions to test the success/efficacy of each. CEOs can also consider any future initiatives they are considering and design questions to assess staff member’s desire for each.

Board Role and CEO Role in Surveying Staff

While charter school boards are ultimately responsible for their organization’s success or failure, an effective board fully empowers their CEO to run the school. This means that staff report to the CEO, and board members should be thoughtful about any direct communication they have with staff in terms of how it supports or empowers the CEO. This dynamic underscores the value of surveying staff, as it is a way the board can gain insight into staff morale and culture while maintaining the CEO’s role in managing staff. To ensure that the survey process supports the CEO’s role as leader, the board and CEO should each maintain a specific role in the process:

Closing Tips For Surveying Staff

• Try to keep much of the survey the same, each year, so that you can compare data over time. This helps the CEO and board to monitor staff culture as the school grows/matures.
• Make participation in the surveys anonymous and respect the staff members’ anonymity. Allow staff to give candid input without fear of reprisal. Resist any urge to “follow up” with specific staff on specific comments when you believe you know who said what. (This goes for the board and CEO.)
• Respond with one voice. Remember, the CEO runs the school. If the survey raises any issues that should be dealt with at the whole staff level, the CEO should do this—not the board.
• Balance multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Multiple choice questions allow you to gather more data with less investment of staff time in taking the survey and allow you to create meaningful averages. Open-ended questions can get a richer level of data. Remember to balance your use of both types of questions.