Mass Insight consultant Francina Victoria said the team sent out robo calls to families in Spanish, Portuguese and English to inform them about focus group opportunities, with help from the district.
FRAMINGHAM — Some School Committee members said they are disappointed that just 16 students from a 9,000-plus student body were interviewed in a long-awaited equity audit and wondered what could be done to boost student voice.
“Is it too late to add more kids to get a wider audience of students, especially students that are representative of certain groups? Our job is to educate students and make sure our delivery of students is effecting their success,” said committee member Beverly Hugo.
Consultant Mass Insight Education and Research offered a presentation to the School Committee on Wednesday on its months-long equity audit of the district. The Boston nonprofit, which was hired in 2019 to conduct the work, examined student achievement data to evaluate the district by the numbers, but also welcomed stories and experiences.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, focus groups and interviews had to be held over Zoom. Mass Insight consultant Francina Victoria said the team sent out robo calls to families in Spanish, Portuguese and English to inform them about focus group opportunities, with help from the district. They also used email, Blackboard and text messages, and asked principals and teachers to provide the information directly to students.
Links were posted on Facebook and to the district website. The Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Development and the Multilingual Department also helped get the word out.
Victoria noted that the presentation includes recommendations on how to further engage students as stakeholders, and a final report will outline more specific ways to go about doing that.
“There is an opportunity to continue this work, because this is a journey,” said Victoria.
The final report is expected by the end of the month. Mass Insight’s managing director of school improvement, Andrea Wolfe, said trying to interview more students could further delay the completion of that document.
“It took us a good six weeks to get the participants that we did in family focus groups, staff focus groups, and student focus groups. I would hate for the final report to be delayed even further as it is obviously informing policy decisions, decisions around remote learning, and goal-setting,” said Wolfe.
Consultant Julie Shepherd said the audit included 952 student survey responses.
“Even though the focus group participation was disappointingly low, we did hear from students… there was student voice, just in a different mode than in the focus groups,” said Shepherd.
The presentation on the equity audit suggested ways to make the district more equitable, such as by investing in explicit, equity-focused professional development, and increasing opportunities for families to share their needs and provide feedback that informs district decisions.
Zane Razzaq writes about education. Reach her at 508-626-3919 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @zanerazz.
