HOW DO YOU ADMINISTER A STUDENT SURVEY?

A Comprehensive Resource: ​Colorado Education Initiative’s Student Perception Survey

*All the information below is from the ​planning guide​.

The 34 items on this survey are evidence-based,

proven items. This survey is recommended for
grades 3-12. I suggest that CCS transfer these
survey items into a Google Form and administer the
survey digitally in order to avoid paper-based data
entry.

A brief explanation of the ‘why’ for doing a student

perception survey.

Link to CEI’s 3-5 survey

Link to CEI’s 6-12 survey

Link to the survey I created for

Crestone Charter School
*you are already authorized to edit the form
ML:
Additional questions to consider:
My teacher knows the things that make me excited about
learning.
My teacher knows when we understand the lesson and
when we do not.
My teacher explains difficult things clearly
My teacher respects my opinions and suggestions.
My teacher pays attention to what all students are
thinking and feeling.
I feel like an important part of this classroom community.
I feel like I do a good job in this class..

Key Decisions to be made during the Creation Process:

● Should there be an open-ended question for students to type in further information
● Should any survey items be reworded or removed?
● Should any original survey items be added, based on what teachers want to know?
● Should the survey be administered to K, 1st, or 2nd grade?

Key Planning Actions for a Student Perception Survey:

● In advance
 ○ Decide how to use the results of the survey

“How will Results be Used?

We cannot underscore this point enough: It is critical to the success of your survey
administration that there is a thoughtful consideration of this question, and that teachers and
school leaders are engaged in district decision-making. It is also important to communicate
these decisions with teachers early and often so that they understand the ways the data will
(and will not) be used to inform practice, make decisions, and evaluate educators.

If this is the first year that your district is using the SPS, you can make these decisions after you
have piloted the survey in your district. Many districts use the first year of survey administration
to introduce educators to the concept of student surveys, build buy-in, and work collectively to
decide how results should be used moving forward. If you choose not to formally use survey
results during your first year, make sure that all staff members are aware of that decision and
the process and timeline for deciding how results will be used in the future.

There are many ways that results can be used to inform teacher, school, and district goals.
Some options include:

As a formative tool:
• Teachers can use results as a formative tool to reflect on their practice, complete their
self-reflection, and create goals.
• Principals can use results to pair teachers who need growth in an area with teachers
who have demonstrated strength in that same area.
• Schools and districts can use results to identify trends and create strategies to address
them.

As part of teacher evaluation:

• Survey results at the item level could be used as an artifact for determining ratings for
professional practices (Teacher Quality Standards I-III).
• Survey results could also be considered as one of your multiple measures.
• Teachers could be evaluated on the plan that they create around their results but not
necessarily the results themselves (Teacher Quality Standard IV only).”
○ Determine communication strategy
○ Pull needed student and teacher data for the survey administration.
○ Appoint a building coordinator.
● Afterwards
○ 1 week later
■ Debrief with staff on the process.
○ As soon as possible
■ Engage with staff on the results.
● Recommended Approach: Share only campus-level data on the survey during
the first staff meeting.
○ A week or two after the first data debrief
■ Share teacher-level data with the teachers. (Since class sizes are smaller than 10, you
may choose not to share teacher-level data at all.)