Community gives district strong image rating

Adams 12 Five Star Schools has a strong image rating according to a recent community survey. Two-thirds of respondents have a favorable opinion of the district, including a large majority of parents (86% favorable) and a majority of those who do not currently have a student in the Five Star District (54%). Additionally, 84 percent of non-student households have a more favorable opinion of the district after learning about the district’s leading Career and Technical Education (CTE) program called FutureForward. 

Magellan Strategies conducted the community survey in January. The bilingual survey included nearly 2,000 responses from residents of the district and has a margin of error of +/- 2.19% at the 95% confidence interval. 

The community survey measured sentiment on a variety of topics including:

• District Image Rating and Job Approval

• School Characteristics and Culture that People Value

• Opinions of FutureForward, the district’s CTE program

• Prioritizing Potential School District Investment Areas

• Opinions on School Building Improvements and Construction

Other key findings from the community survey include:

• 89% of parents have a favorable opinion of teachers who work for Adams 12 Five Star Schools

• Among all respondents, 69% would vote yes and approve a modest tax increase to fund teacher salaries and classroom programs

• Support for an increase in school district debt (without raising taxes) to fund school construction and infrastructure improvements is also strong, with 60% of respondents saying they would approve a ballot measure

• 78% of respondents said they would support a modest tax increase to fund CTE courses and programming. Among non-student households, 77% said they would support a future tax increase.

• The top four “very important” school attributes and characteristics in developing great schools are:

  • A safe and secure learning environment (90% very important)

  • Teaching basic subjects like reading, math and writing (89% very important)

  • Attracting and retaining high-quality teachers (88% very important)

  • Teaching collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving skills (84% very important)

• The top-rated areas for potential investment included:

  • Securing industry partnerships to provide more job shadows, internships, externships and apprenticeships

  • Expanding access to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) experiences to more students in more schools at all grade levels

  • Adding new CTE programming including robotics, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, veterinarian assistant, cosmetology/barbering, dental assistant, aviation, agriculture, energy, and distribution and logistics

  • Providing computer science and computational thinking instruction at all levels

To see more results, view the Magellan Strategies presentation of findings.