Scarsdale Forum Releases Results of Survey on Education Topics to be Studied

The Scarsdale Forum has released the results from a village wide survey conducted by the Forum's Education Committee. The purpose of the survey was to solicit Scarsdale residents' opinions on what topics the Education Committee should research and report upon during 2017-2018. According to Education Committee Co-Chair Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez, "The members of the Education Committee really wanted to reach out to as many residents throughout Scarsdale to engage them in determining what our community's education priorities are and to guide our committee in writing research reports relevant to the whole Scarsdale community."

126 respondents from all five neighborhoods ranked 12 topics in order of their priority. The Need for a Long-Term Financial Plan and Program Evaluation Process and Metrics ranked 1 and 2, respectively. Over 30% of all respondents ranked the previously mentioned topics as their first choice, and 20% of the respondents had those two topics as their second choice. Financial Literacy and Community Design Initiative: Involving All Stakeholder in Designing Education Goals tied for third place. Less than 15% of the respondents chose any other topic as their top choice.

Respondents ranked how additional minutes added to the curriculum should be utilized as their fourth priority. That topic scored just a few points below the third choice topics. Market trends in teacher recruitment ranked fifth. The topic of least interest to respondents answering the survey were the new rules on residency requirements.

Here are the results:

The Need for a Long-Term Financial Plan (10.80)

Program Evaluation Process and Metrics (10.64)

Financial Literacy (8.39)

Community Design Initiative: How can all stakeholders in Scarsdale participate jointly in designing important education goals and objectives (8.39)

How should additional minutes added to the curriculum be utilized? (8.09)

Teacher recruitment market trends and strategies (7.90)

Indirect (not in the classroom) vs. Direct(classroom) staff evolution and trends (7.88)

Ties between the Village and School. (7.60)

Facilities usage for non-education community initiatives (6.76)

Pushing the junior and senior year curriculum to begin with equal rigor earlier in high school (6.34)

Should the school consider developing how to create effective online and blended courses? (5.85)

New rules on residency requirements (2.0)

According to Education Committee Co-Chair Carlos Ramírez, "The Committee distributed the survey widely to Scarsdale Forum members and the broader Scarsdale community several times through Scarsdale based Facebook sites, neighborhood associations, local Scarsdale media, and personal email distribution lists." According to Kirkendall-Rodríguez, "we focused on distributing the survey through multiple means precisely to achieve random sampling."

126 individuals from all five neighborhoods filled out the survey. 64% of the respondents were female and 36% were male. 80% of the respondents were not members of the Education Committee. 56% of respondents have children in Scarsdale schools, and 44% do not have children enrolled in Scarsdale. Of the respondents who stated that they did not have children in the school districts, the majority had children who graduated from Scarsdale schools, and a smaller group had children either in pre-school or in private school. Of the respondents who have children in schools, 72% had at least one child in an elementary school, 32% had at least one child in the middle school, and 31% had at least one child in the high school.

Question #8 asked respondents an open ended question, 'Do you have any other topic suggestions that were not included in Question 7?' 46% of the respondents answered question 8 with additional comments or recommendations about numerous topics that they are interested in including communication with the school district, needing a framework to compare Scarsdale schools with other schools, facilities renovation, improving math and science offerings before high school, and teacher tenure.

The Education Committee will be exploring the Scarsdale community's educational values and priorities in more depth via focus groups on September 13, 2017 at a public Scarsdale Forum event. Ramírez "encourages all residents of Scarsdale and the Mamaroneck Strip to attend the event and have their voices heard."

The full report can be found by clicking on this link. 

Questions about the survey and the analysis may be directed to Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez at ScarsdaleMayra@Yahoo.com.