CHESHIRE, Mass. — The consultants behind the education study for North Berkshire are hoping for solid responses to its recently released survey. 

 

The survey, released last week, can be found here. 

 

"Our goal is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent overall survey responses, which is somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 responses," project manager Jake Eberwein told the steering committee for the North Berkshire Educational Sustainability Study at Wednesday's meeting at Hoosac Valley High School. 

 

This is the next phase of the study of secondary education in North County being undertaken through state funding and conducted by Berkshire Educational Consulting Group, Berk12.

 

"Our first phase was project awareness, and that was really our you know attempt to meet the school committees, select boards, and we wrapped that up this past Monday in Williamstown," Berk12 researcher Brendan Sheran said. "And certainly, we'll be doing more of that going back out probably in the midyear or springtime. But in terms of info gathering, really, the data collection — that's where we are now."

 

The community survey was launched through sharing on social media, the group's stakeholder list, the press, and the district partners, which are distributing it to educators, parents and students. The window is expected to close on Friday, Oct. 9, but Sheran said they can be flexible with the date. 

 

The survey takes about seven to 10 minutes and is open to those in the Hoosac Valley Regional and Mount Greylock Regional school districts and in North Adams, Clarksburg, Florida and Savoy.

 

"We're going to try to track as close as we can to the share of residents within towns to sort of be somewhat close to the share of responses, so it can be representative of the region as a whole," Eberwein said. "It's a different kind of survey because we didn't send it out directly to every single person. It's going out through networks and people access it in different ways. So having a really tight response rate of 20-30-40 percent is really difficult in this setting, but if you can ensure it's representative, that's one of the most important things."

 

The responses as of Wednesday were about 136 and Eberwein noted they had a long way to get to 2,000. He encouraged the committee to do some outreach and said a reminder would also be sent out. It was suggested that hard copies of the survey be made available and Eberwein was amenable if the committee thought it was worth the investment. 

 

A query was also made about sending the survey to the superintendent of Hancock Elementary School, as that school sends most of its students to Mount Greylock. Eberwein agreed that would be appropriate. 

 

North Adams Superintendent Timothy Callahan asked if the survey could more explicitly state it was about Grades 6 to 12 after a commenter on Facebook said they hadn't realized the grade range. 

 

Sheran said he also saw the comment and added in a piece about the grades.

 

"When you're asked if you're a parent, it's going to prompt you to talk about which grades and then which schools, you will [see it] there," he said. "But at the beginning, it doesn't appear as focused. I'll do a double check and make sure there's not another spot we might want to accentuate that."

 

Eberwein said the study will be doing a presentation at the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition roundtable on Nov. 13 and will be developing the community forums for early December. He hoped to have those dates locked in by the next meeting so they could be posted on the towns' calendars and advertised through social media. 

 

Focus groups will also be scheduled, and Sheran said, "we have a good number of people who've done the survey so far, who've expressed interest. So we're catching a lot of folks who want to have deeper conversations, which is awesome."

 

Callahan and Sheran also met with Drury High School students on the Portrait of a Graduate team who will be running small student summits at the participating schools in the North Berkshire School Union.  

 

The students would be engaging in some of the portrait work they've done, Sheran said, but also gather data by asking the elementary and middle school students about their experiences and what they would like to see in secondary education. 

 

"I think it's a great thing what North Adams is doing to engage that," he said. "We're also going to certainly talk to Hoosac, who's a part of that project, and then also find ways to intersect with Greylock on that piece, too, and use some student engagement across districts and across students. So a lot of interesting things."

 

As to data reports, Eberwein estimated that the financial and enrollment pieces are nearly done, and others are underway. He thought about 80 percent of his time has been spent on the financials, offering some perspective on the per-student spending which can differ depending on foundation budgets, Chapter 70, net school spending, actual spending and total expenditures. 

 

The committee saw slides related to finances, movements in enrollment and school choice, giving some idea of the broad parameters of the study. The draft documents will go through several reviews before finalization. 

 

"These are snapshots. I can just make a few points, and we can pose this out, and open questions," he said. "We have a lot of data. The volume is the challenge in this project, and kind of how we represent it is important. We bumped into a few gaps in data and inconsistencies, but what I would say to you when these reports are presented, you really want to look at sort of big trends, big change, not get too stuck way down the detail." 

 

All the working documents will be made available on the NBESS website.

 

Steering Committee Chair Erin Milne asked about getting rid of the "fake kids" on the website, referring to image of students who are obviously not in a North Berkshire high school as the main photos on the website.

 

"I just feel like it takes up so much of the space that the first thing people see, and it doesn't really have anything to do with us or the project," she said, adding she could make a banner with the schools' logos. 

 

Callahan concurred: "That was one feedback that I received. They don't like the stock photo kids. I think replacing them with anything else would be favorable."