The SAIS School Community Feedback Survey is designed to help schools gather data on how well the school is meeting expectations of parents and families, faculty and staff, and current upper school students.
The survey has been updated to reflect current events and concerns that schools are facing. Schools should preview the surveys to make sure they are appropriate for your school audiences.
Schools can choose to remove questions or selections as appropriate for your school and culture. Schools also have the ability to add their own questions for an additional fee.
After completing the demographic questions, respondents are asked to provide feedback in eleven different categories from mission and engagement to safety and security. Within each category are specific items.
At the item level, respondents indicate to what extent the school is meeting their expectations. The respondent also answers whether or not they would recommend the school with an opportunity to provide narrative comments. The sample question below shows how the survey question will appear for stakeholders.
Survey Preview
The survey has been updated to reflect current events and concerns that schools are facing. Please preview the surveys to make sure they are appropriate for your environment. Non-member schools who wish to preview the surveys, please contact surveys@sais.org.
School Report
Results from the survey are compiled and sent to the school approximately 10-14 days after the survey closes. Reports are presented with comparison ready disaggregation of stakeholder groups. There is no individual identifying information in the reports to maintain the anonymity of the respondents.
An optional custom virtual workshop is available for $400. This will provide an in-depth and personalized analysis and is delivered as a 75-minute live virtual session. You will have the opportunity to purchase this workshop when you receive your survey results.
By using a third party such as SAIS, your stakeholders will have a higher confidence level in the integrity and validity of the survey process. Also, SAIS is able to send follow-up emails to the people who have not yet responded to the survey.
The initial message announcing the survey should come from a recognized and credible source, such as the head of school. There is compelling research indicating that a pre-survey announcement from a trusted source increases response rates.
The average amount of time to complete the survey is 10 minutes.
Yes. If you wish to request additional questions please contact surveys@sais.org. We will work with you to design the appropriate format of the question to facilitate the best possible responses. Additional fees apply.
We are happy to remove questions that do not fit the culture of your school. Other common modifications include division labels such as upper school vs. high school. If there is an item of verbiage that you would like to modify, just let us know.
Yes. Remember, this survey is establishing how well the school is meeting expectations. Just because you don’t offer something doesn’t mean your stakeholders don’t have expectations in that area (nor does it imply that you should start offering it).
We can provide a web link for this group. However, in that case we are not able to send reminders or monitor who has or has not completed the survey. We recommend arranging for students to take the survey all at one time or during a specific class. Teachers or advisors will distribute the link to the students. Web links are available for the student version only.
You may choose to include them in both the faculty and parent survey. They will receive two separate email invitations. Let them know to expect two surveys and answer each from the appropriate perspective.
We found that the trustee group was often too small to be statistically significant, and schools often placed too much weight on responses from such a small group. We also found that alumni were often too far removed, by geography or years, to appropriately comment on the current status of the school. Alumni reflections on their experiences can cloud the present day picture of the school. Trustees and alumni who are parents of current students can be included in the parent survey group.
