Almost 8,000 responses were submitted by parents, family members, and caregivers to a pulse check with their praise and insights throughout the week of April 19th through April 26th. If you are a family who receives Possip Pulse Checks, you may have heard back about trends from your specific school. It’s important to know what families are saying in your own community, but we also see it as a powerful tool to know what family trends are coming up across the nation. Possip has schools in 26 States and we want to share our findings from families. Keep reading to hear an overview of family praise and insights from across the country.

 

Last week, 79% of families responded that they were happy with their child’s school, with the remaining saying they were mostly happy or not happy with their child’s school.

 

Here are the overall breakdowns of what families were talking about in their feedback and praise this week:

 

The most talked about topic for families this week was in the operations bucket, which consists of things like school schedules, transportation needs, carline logistics, school wide communications, technology, COVID safety measures, attendance, etc.

We saw a few positive trends from families across the country:

 

• 17% of all Possip comments this week referred to teacher appreciation! We are continuing to see this as a trend throughout the school year and even more now that Teacher Appreciation Week is right around the corner. Parents mentioned how caring, patient, flexible, and supportive teachers have been this year. 
• Praise for creative COVID safe changes for schools returning to in-person learning. Outdoor cafeterias, ways to make students feel connected while still being socially distant, and overall smooth reopenings.

Getting more granular with the feedback trends, here are the most frequently discussed feedback for schools across the country:

• 7% of all Possip recommendations from families this week referred to feedback, ideas, and thoughts about COVID safety measures during in-person learning. Here are a few representative quotes from families on this topic:

• • “Greater consistency and clearer Information regarding Covid protocol and testing would help”

• • “My child came home early last week due to a sports related injury. We kept the student home the following day but were subsequently enrolled in COVID protocol due to the absence. “

• • “Need consequences for unmasking repeatedly”

• • “No masks at recess.”

• 5% of all Possip recommendations to schools revolved around requests for more communication to families. Schools can specifically focus on communicating to virtual families and communicating about grades and academic progress frequently. Here are a few representative quotes from families on this topic:

• • “Advanced notice for meetings and discussions.”

• • “I haven’t heard anything from my son’s teachers. Really disappointed:

• • “There is very little to no communication with remote students… I think my son missed his testing”

• 4% of all Possip recommendations to schools were around questions and comments about summer school programming. Families wanted options for remote learning over the summer and mostly wanted to know more logistics and clear information about what schools/districts are offering.

• • “Summer school is needed for remote students as well”

• • “Do my children still need to attend summer school in June?”

• • “Will there be a summer program for k-6?”

• • “What are the options for summer school?”

Here are a few suggested parent tools and resources based on what we are hearing.

• Possip Power Session: Activities to Do Without Screens Over the Summer
• Possip Blog: How to Share Feedback With Your School 

We also shared these resources with our partner schools:

• Free Family Newsletter Resource: https://app.hubspot.com/documents/5933397/view/94080897?accessId=82f822
• Possip Blog: TAW
• Check out this blog that gives some tips to help guide communication with families about COVID safety measures: https://possip.com/back-to-the-building-preparing-for-in-person-school/

We’d love to hear from you. What else do you want to need or see? Do these parent praise and insights align with what you see?