AUSD Surveys Community for School Spending Suggestions

Posted on by

FARRAH LUU
Editor in Chief

REBECCA ZENG
News Editor

By circulating a survey during March, the Alhambra Unified School District (AUSD) encouraged students, staff, parents and community members to give suggestions on how the district how adjust its spending to benefit students.

According to California State PTA, the law requires school districts in California to focus on student success by requiring each school district to create a Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP).

“LCAP survey results are now given consideration in almost any school related decision making processes where they are relevant particularly in something like the 3-year plan,” Math Department Head Paul Stein said.

A district’s LCAP does not receive any major changes; however, goals are set the previous school year to dictate what should to be accomplished by the end of the following year. AUSD thus created a survey meant to be taken by AUSD staff, students, community members and parents. The survey included questions based on the eight key areas of student success, and inquired about the survey-takers’ preferences and suggestions for AUSD.

The responses from the surveys help shape the goals AUSD sets out for the following school year, so that a majority of the concerns presented by every stakeholder is addressed.

“I think the survey needs to become more stakeholder friendly. The language may be kind of hard to make sense of to the layperson.,” Stein said.

According to the results, which are available on the AUSD website, 1537 people, including 802 students, 49 community members, 246 parents and 440 staff took the survey. The most popular suggestion for AUSD to strengthen student achievement was to increase student or teacher support.

However, various students were not familiar with the survey.

“I did not know about the LCAP survey. I heard my teacher announce it while reading the bulletin, but I did not know how important it was,” sophomore Wendy Tseng said.

However, AUSD informed the public about the LCAP survey by making phone calls, sending emails, printing notices, and placing flyers, which had the information printed in three different languages, in teachers’ mailboxes to be passed out during class.

Finally, there were some suggestions on improving outreach to the AUSD community.

“Students could do the LCAP survey during class time; if they do it, it’s more likely they’ll encourage their parents to take it at home,” English teacher Lori Naylor said.