School districts begin collecting Thoughtexchange data

Both Cheney and Medical Lake school districts are employing an electronic method to collect feedback.

Last year both school districts contracted with Thoughtexchange to create a survey to help them understand the thoughts and concerns of staff, parents and community members as well as make sure they are meeting standards.

Thoughtexchange is a national company that creates software to help entities engage the community and discover insights from stakeholders. School districts from around the state, including Deer Park and Central Valley, use Thoughtexchange.

The first step — Share — for both Cheney and Medical Lake in the Thoughtexchange process began in September. Both districts invited the community, all parents, staff and key communicators to share their concerns and appreciations about the district, as well as submit a key idea on the forum.

“This was different than a normal survey,” Dr. Deb Clemens, Cheney School District superintendent, said. “Instead of us asking a question, it’s open ended and anonymous. A parent can express their concern with a specific school building, as well as the district as a whole.”

Clemens added that some ideas might be more important for one school rather than the district as a whole.

Cheney had approximately 1,600 thoughts shared while Medical Lake had 792. Some of the concerns related to nutrition, curriculums and programming. Tim Ames, Medical Lake School District Superintendent, said one of the specific concerns for his district was related to Late Start, which Medical Lake adopted earlier this year.

“Lots of parents appreciated the Late Start, but some still had some concerns,” Ames said. “We had 10 comments for one building.”

The second step — Star — is where community members review ideas people contributed and assign stars to the ones they think are most important. Cheney had approximately 45,000 stars assigned to various topics while Medical Lake had 18,631 stars.

Both districts are currently in the Discover step and are receiving information from Thoughtexchange. Clemens said staff will analyze the results and present them to the community. Cheney will also present the key ideas to the school board. Once the board reviews the results, Cheney will start another Thoughtexchange survey that will focus on a specific theme the district selects.

“Schools are getting ready to present their improvement plans and we may have to go back and modify our plan depending on the results,” Clemens said.

Ames said his staff will share the results with the building principals, look at trends and bring the top five key ideas back to the district.

“This whole process has been good for us,” Ames said. “We got some good feedback, concerns and appreciations. We plan to analyze the results and continue to dig deep.”

Clemens said Thoughtexchange is another way for the district to continue to engage residents, though it’s not intended to replace the district’s current communication methods.

“We use a lot of electronic communication with parents,” Clemens said. “The community is used to using technology. We felt this was the right time to use something like Thoughtexchange.”

Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].