School board members share survey plans
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008
BENTONVILLE — The first draft of a survey designed to gauge Bentonville School District patrons’ perceptions of the district should be done by January.
The issue was discussed during the Bentonville School Board’s monthly meeting Monday night. The board met with Rick Nobles of Patron Insight for more than an hour before its regular meeting to discuss the survey, which should be conducted in February, March or April 2009.
The board will meet for its quarterly work session Jan. 22, when members hope to have the first draft of the survey completed. A work session is a meeting designed for longrange planning, and while consensus can be reached among members, no binding votes are taken.
The survey will be developed based on copious amounts of information being gathered from community leaders, parents, district and school-building administrators and district staff. The survey will ask patrons about how they get information regarding the district, their thoughts on specific projects and their costs, and the patrons’ general perceptions about how the district is performing.
“ It’s more about what we are doing and how we’re doing, ” said board president Travis Riggs. “ It all stems back eventually to putting together a millage package. ”
In other school district-related news, board members heard from several concerned citizens regarding alleged activity on one of the school buses, where some middleschool-age boys reportedly made inappropriate sexual remarks to a girl who is in kindergarten. The citizens were also upset about other reports of inappropriate behavior on the bus, such as reports of older students “ mooning” the younger children.
Because the offending children’s privacy could not be violated, district personnel could not comment on the reported incidents, except to say that the situation is being handled appropriately.
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