Ideas for Administering the Staff Climate Survey

An important ingredient in a successful school is a staff whose members believe they are valued, clear about their role, and have adequate resources to do their job. The WINSS Staff Climate Survey is a tool to help assess the confidence and morale of all staff members in a school or district. Consider the following ideas to make your survey project most effective.

Survey all staff.
This survey is appropriate for anyone employed by a school or district. Don't limit your survey takers to just teaching staff and administrators. Every staff member makes a unique contribution to helping students succeed. Be sure to include aides, volunteers, clerical staff, pupil services personnel, food service, and janitorial staff in your survey.

Be flexible in the survey methods.
Don't assume that all staff members are comfortable completing a survey on the computer. Provide a paper copy of the survey as well as information about where to find the survey online.

Assure confidentiality.
The survey program will not display results of any individual respondents' answers. Survey data can not be disaggregated if the number in a given group is five or fewer. Project managers want honest feedback and this confidentiality feature will help encourage survey takers to be candid. Explain the precautions to ensure confidentiality when you ask staff to take the survey.

Stress the importance of the data and explain how you will use it.
School improvement teams need as much data as is possible to gather about the effectiveness of their schools. Climate surveys are a measure of how people feel about being and working in your school. Clarify that the survey is not a evaluation of work performance but rather an assessment of the perceived strengths and needs of the school climate. If you are assessing needs in order to make things better, relate suggested improvements to your survey results.