INSIDE

Parents, school analyze survey

By Meg Olson

Despite a very low response rate, the Blaine school district and local parents claim results of a survey on community attitudes towards the Point Roberts primary school (PRP) has yielded information they can use to make the school stronger.

“There was minimal response in terms of the survey but the people who filled it in took the time. Limited data but very valuable,” said departing school board member Red Goodwin at an October 4 meeting to review the results of a survey sent to a thousand registered voters on the Point. There were 25 responses.

Goodwin, who is moving to Alaska and will be replaced by Shelley Button on the board, worked with parents to develop the survey as a tool to gauge “what the priorities are for parents in Point Roberts when you look at your child’s education.”

The goal was to find out how many local families opted out of the local primary school and why. “There is a number of kids who live here, kindergarten to second grade, who are not attending Point Roberts primary school,” Goodwin said. “We don’t know the percentage so we don’t know if there is really something we’re not doing.”

While the survey gave a good idea of some of the challenges and strengths of the local school, said new Blaine school district superintendent Ron Spanjer, it could not answer that question. “This survey format presents some limits with respect to data analysis,” Spanjer said after the meeting. “There is no way for me to conclude from the survey how many people overall chose not to send their child(ren) to the primary school.”

Nineteen of the 25 survey respondents said they had school age children at home, while seven had preschool age children.

Of the seven preschool parents, Spanjer said, four have made the decision not to send their children to the primary school, two are undecided and one will be attending the school. Several of those who were undecided or choosing to opt out of local public education said they felt the school needed more resources, while others offered no comments.

Survey results showed respondents had nine children in primary school, three went to the Blaine primary school, seven to Blaine elementary, five to Blaine middle school, nine to Blaine high school, three were being home schooled, and eight attended Canadian schools.

The reasons why families were making those schooling decisions were less clear. Asked what factors were important in deciding where to send their children to school more than half of respondents chose class size, curriculum, proximity to home and resource staff. When respondents who chose not to send their children to Blaine schools were asked what factors were important in that decision, school proximity, the border and proximity to the three to 12th grade program emerged as priorities.

“Proximity to home was a key issue,” Spanjer said.

Specific comments were not released, Spanjer said, due to confidentiality concerns. If a specific school district employee was named, Spanjer said, the nature of the complaint was not reported but “I’ve tried to capture the essence of their comments.” A common theme in the comments was concern over the length of the bus ride and the lack of a monitor.

While results indicated three respondents commented the “program needs improvement,” Spanjer said overall the quality of education was judged positively. “Those people who have engaged in primary school are really positive,” he said. “So much of the issues for folks are proximity and distance.”

Parent Elaine Komusi said they weren’t getting enough feedback from families who didn’t attend the local school. “People who have chosen not to put their children in the school district disconnect,” she said. Former primary school teacher Mary Edgley, who is now teaching in Blaine, added that overall primary school parents were happy with their children’s education but people unfamiliar with the school had misconceptions. “The only way to get past that is communication.”

Improving communication and engaging the community in the school more emerged as the most pressing next step for most participants at the meeting.

“It’s abundantly clear we’re not reaching the community,” said Linda Hughes. “If we were using the facility more we’d be almost accidentally reaching them.” Increased use of the school for community functions, website improvements and greater visibility were suggested as possible way to reach out. Hughes suggested events like a reunion of former students. Edgeley said the school could highlight the accomplishments of students who started at primary school and now excel at the Blaine schools.

Spanjer and Goodwin said future work sessions, starting with a 6 p.m. meeting on October 26, would focus on how to communicate better with families not attending the school and how to raise the school’s profile in the community.