[M]ore than 80 percent of teachers and staff in the Burlington School District do not believe the school system is a positive community and feel that the district does not communicate openly with them, according to a just-released survey.
Teachers and staff also said they do not feel appreciated by the district and do not believe the district fairly allocates its resources. More than 2,000 staff, students and parents participated in the survey the district conducted in spring 2018 and released last week.
Overall, the survey results reflect a serious gap between district leadership and its teachers and staff. Superintendent Yaw Obeng said the district is emphasizing relationship building during this school year after analyzing the survey results.
“The best thing we can do is to work with staff to figure out what this data means, and how we can create a healthy working environment to influence the best learning environment that will ultimately benefit the success of our students,” he said.
Over 70 percent of staff and nearly two-thirds of parents responded that they either somewhat or strongly disagree that district leadership communicates a strong and compelling vision for the district.
Slightly more than half of parents also said they did not think the district fairly allocated resources and that the district does not put enough resources into curriculum and instructional development.
The survey results come during a tumultuous year for the district. During the spring, former Chairperson Mark Porter alleged that now-Vice Chair Jeff Wick had acted with racial bias in discussing renewing Obeng’s contract. Wick denied this and an investigation by a former Vermont State Police officer was unable to determine if Wick had acted with racial bias.
This fall, Burlington High School suspended guidance director Mario Macias after the Vermont Agency of Education brought licensing charges against him for unprofessional behavior. Censorship of the high school’s student newspaper also drew criticism.
School Board Chair Clare Wool and Wick did not respond to requests for comment. Burlington Education Association President Andrew Styles and communications director Betsy Nolan did not respond to requests for comment. The BEA is the union that represents educators in the school district.
Staff and parents gave the district positive marks for welcoming and accepting people from diverse backgrounds.
The district is presenting the data to stakeholders and will set goals to improve its climate after discussing the results with the community. The district will present the results of the survey to the school board at its Nov. 13 meeting.
Obeng said the district established a climate team after concluding its strategic planning process as the district knew there were areas needing improvement. He said the district has dedicated time allotted to professional development this year for focusing on repairing relationships between staff and administrators.
“There is more work to be done, but the answers should not come from the top alone; we certainly need staff, parents, and faculty to work together to help create the climate people want and need, and we look forward to working together to achieve this,” he said.
Obeng said the school district does not have unlimited resources and that some hard budgeting decisions have to be made. But he said the district has done a better job of getting more input on the budget and putting a system of checks and balance into place in the last two years.
“We are committed to reviewing these improvements and working to do even better next year, and we will continue to give our paras, teachers, and administrators input in the budget development, starting in the classroom up through principals, before going to the district leadership level and ultimately the board,” he said.
