This winter, the Parents’ Communication Task Force is working hard to develop an online parent survey to gather parent perspectives about communication between themselves and Milton. The Task Force itself includes administrators, faculty and staff, several of whom are Milton parents. Overall, the goal of the Task Force is to identify ways to strengthen vibrant and effective communication and relationships between Milton Academy and Milton parents. This survey will be the first in a series. Milton parents beyond those on the committee will weigh in at several points as the survey develops and before it arrives in parents’ email inboxes this spring.
The Task Force intends to build a baseline survey that, with adjustments and time-relevant changes, could assess parent feedback at regular, reasonable intervals. Parents and the School could count on this periodic exchange to track experiences over time.
Many parent constituencies exist within our K–12, boarding and day school. To make sure we’re asking parents at every level the right questions, the Task Force has partnered with Hanover Research to support the survey development, administration and analysis. Task Force members want to make sure the survey reflects what our different parent groups consider to be core communication with the School.
The group will be building survey content through March and will solicit additional parent input when the survey is in draft form. They also hope to ask a number of parents to beta-test the survey online. Target timing for the survey launch is late April, and the survey will be available for about two weeks. Parents will receive an invitation to participate through email; and hopefully most Milton parents will choose to spend roughly 15 minutes reacting to the survey questions.
Parents’ responses will be completely anonymous. Hanover Research is managing the process and will conduct the analysis once the survey is closed. Hanover’s analysis will take place at the end of the school year, and the Task Force expects to share with parents what we will have learned during the fall of 2015.
