Survey: Residents Trust Fairfax County School System

A recent survey of just more than 9,600 county residents shows that while a majority of parents trust Fairfax County Public Schools, a high percentage of nonparents feel uninformed on school issues.

FCPS conducted its first Trust and Confidence Survey in September, the results of which went public Monday. In all, 9,633 respondents completed the survey, and 5,398, or 56 percent, were parents.  According to the 2010 United States Census, Fairfax County has a population of almost 1.1 million.

When asked whether they agree or disagree that "FCPS is a trustworthy public institution," 81 percent of parents and 63 percent of nonparents agreed. Of the 4,235 nonparents who completed the survey, 27 percent said they did not have enough information to make the assessment, a common theme throughout the survey.

No question received less than 27 percent of nonparents declaring they did not have enough information. The statistic reached as high as 50 percent when asked if they agreed "FCPS principals and assistant principals are effective instructional leaders for teachers and staff."

The discrepancy is not something and FCPS staff intend to take lightly, as the majority of Fairfax County residents do not have kids in public schools yet they pay taxes and vote on the school bond referendum every two years, Dale said. Also, the public school system helps draw businesses to the area.

"Number one, I think it is important for them to know about Fairfax County Public Schools because we are such a viable component to the quality of life in Fairfax," Dale said.

The survey cost $10,000 and was conducted by District Management Council, a company that consults school systems. FCPS hopes to conduct the survey every two years.

Participants were chosen through either a random sampling of parent email addresses or randomly chosen patrons in the Fairfax County Public Libraries system, which is a public list of about 150,000 names.

FCPS also hosted three separate focus groups — one with 12 parents, another with five business and community representatives, and the last with five FCPS employees — to discuss the school system's strengths and areas that need improvement.

Though Dale acknowledged the comments from the focus groups can help shape a discussion moving forward, he also said he was not satisfied with the small pool of participants.

"It's a little disappointing," Dale said. "I may use one of my PTA Advisory Councils to drill down and have them look at the data and interpret it. ... Same with my Teacher Advisory group."

Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with a series of statements. On no statement did a majority disagree with a positive statement about FCPS.

When asked, "School system leaders make decisions that are fair for all students," 33 percent of parents disagreed, the highest "disagree" percentage among parents.

Nonparents offered the most negative reaction to the statement "I receive specific information regarding FCPS' progress towards meeting its goals and priorities."

Dale said the school board's desire to have a better understanding of both "customer satisfaction" and the effectiveness of the school system's communications drove the report.

Dale said the results did not surprise him.

"We wanted to move from anecdotal to data. The anecdotal comments that you hear from people kind of jive with [the results]," Dale said. "Yeah, we have problems and issues, but I think they come from a subset of the population. That's not to say that we don't have to pay attention to them, but I think the bulk of our parents and nonparents are highly supportive of our school system."

School Board Chairwoman Janie Strauss (Dranesville) said the results confirmed what she has heard from the community.

"Parents in the community see FCPS as a high-quality school system," Strauss said. "We see the individual parents getting a lot of their information from what we send out, and this is good. Going forward, we clearly have to find ways to communicate with the nonparents in a cost-effective way."

Strauss said part of the challenge is figuring out a way to reach out to nonparents when there isn't easy access to their email addresses. 

"Twenty years ago we would do a quarterly newsletter that was sent to everyone in the county, but it was very expensive," Strauss said. "We'll have to figure out an effective way to reach out online if mailings will be too expensive. We're at an interesting divide in community communication."

Barbara Hunter, assistant superintendent of communications and community outreach, will present the findings to the Fairfax County School Board at the Dec. 5 work session.

For the full results, click on the survey in the top right corner.