Parents, Staff, Students:

Take the Survey

by Feb. 28, 2020!

The Your Voice Matters survey provides insight from Arlington Public Schools (APS) families, students in grades 4-12, staff and teachers. Parents and Staff, you will receive an e-mail with a link from Panorama. Students will take the survey during school hours.

APS and the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families (APCYF) partner on the survey to compile a snapshot of our students, school climate and engagement, and deepen our understanding of children, youth and family well-being in Arlington. The results are used to inform work across both the school division and the County. The data also helps APS measure progress on the 2018-24 Strategic Plan.

Results available in Spring 2020.

See the 2018 Survey Results

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Your Voice Matters Survey? This student, family, and staff survey is a collaboration between Arlington Public Schools (APS) and the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families (APCYF) to provide the Arlington community with a snapshot of school climate, staff engagement, and student and family well-being. This feedback is vital in helping Arlington strengthen programs for students and families. The survey focus areas include:

safety
health and well-being
voice
engagement

Why do we conduct the Your Voice Matters Survey? This collaborative effort has been undertaken to streamline previous survey efforts: the site-based survey, community satisfaction survey and Developmental Assets survey. APS and APCYF found that there were many thematic overlaps between the previous surveys and decided to develop a new survey that will reduce the burden on survey takers, maximize the impact of results, and keep on top of issues that matter to the Arlington community in a more timely manner.

Are the results confidential? Yes. All results are presented at a group, or aggregate, level. Additionally, Panorama Education handles all the data and emails surrounding this survey, so that no one at APS will ever see your individual response. Before sharing response data with APS, Panorama removes identifying information (such as name, email, and ID number) so that your response cannot be tied back to you by anyone in the district. As stated in Panorama’s privacy policy, they are committed to protecting the information they gather. They have implemented administrative, technical, and physical security procedures to protect information stored in their servers, which are located in the United States. They use security safeguards such as physical access controls to buildings and files, data encryption, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptography, two-factor authentication, and firewalls to help prevent unauthorized access to the information they maintain.

Is participation voluntary? Yes, participation is voluntary; it is also confidential and important!

Will the survey be administered in a language other than English? Yes. The 2020 student and staff survey is available in English and Spanish. The family survey is available in English, Spanish, Amharic, Arabic, and Mongolian.

How is the survey administered? The student survey is administered in a classroom setting and completed online. Parents either receive an email invitation or if an email was not on file, a paper copy through the mail. APS staff receive an email to complete the survey online and some staff, without easy access to a computer as part of their job, are given a paper survey.

How will results be used? APS will review a summary of each school’s results with the principal at the end of the school year to inform planning for next year. APS and APCYF will work together with additional stakeholders to identify trends and areas for further action. In order to promote greater transparency results are available on a public dashboard. Also, this link can found on the APS and APCYF websites.

Where can I find trend results? The spring 2018 survey was the first administration of the new survey instruments. Between spring and fall 2019, efforts were undertaken to refine the survey instruments. Given how many edits were made to questions, trends are not yet available. It is hoped that the work undertaken to refine the 2020 survey will allow for consistency moving forward and trends will be available after the 2022 administration.

If you have additional questions or concerns you can contact Panorama Education at support+arlingtonva@panoramaed.com or Rebecca Hjelm at rhjelm@arlingtonva. us.