Your Voice Matters @ APS Survey

Survey Dates
February 20, 2024 to April 5, 2024

Participation
The survey is entirely voluntary, but highly encouraged. We value every voice in our community and your feedback is fundamental in shaping the future of APS.

Topics Covered
The survey encompasses a range of topics including school and community safety, health and well-being, engagement, and more. This is your opportunity to let us know what is working and what needs improvement.

Everyone will receive an individualized link to complete the survey via email. The survey can be completed online, at your convenience, within the survey window.

We aim to make this process as inclusive and accessible as possible. If you require any assistance or alternative formats, please contact us at engage@apsva.us.

General FAQs:

Q: Can I start the survey, exit, and come back to it later with the responses saved?

A: No, your responses will not be saved. You need to complete the survey in one session.

Q: Can I skip a question?

A: Yes, you can skip a question. This is the best solution for any question(s) that may not be relevant or that you feel you cannot answer accurately.

Q: How often will response rates be posted?

A: They will be updated on the intranet weekly.

Q: Is the survey confidential?

A: All individual responses are confidential and are maintained by our third party vendor, Panorama Education. Individual responses are not shared with APS staff at schools or division level offices. Data is only broken down into demographic subgroups that include ten or more respondents to protect confidentiality. For staff, Panorama asks for your employee ID to remove you from the weekly email reminders once you have completed the survey. However, the employee ID question is optional, and staff may elect to leave this question blank.

Q: How should we on the school-level track student response rates?

A: To ensure confidentiality, no one in APS will know who has responded to the survey. We can provide aggregate response rates, indicating that 100 students are expected to respond and there are only 80 recorded responses.Many schools find it helpful for proctors to note who was unable to take the survey due to absences, scheduling conflicts, or technology issues.The coordinator can then follow-up to ensure those students can take the survey at a later date. Schools will not be penalized if you do not achieve a 100% response rate. The intent is to allow all students the opportunity to be heard and to have reliable and useful data. However, we realize there are many reasons why some students may be unable to take the survey.

Q: How should we interpret the posted response rates?

A: The posted response rates are intended to help schools have ongoing awareness of response rates during the survey window so that schools aren’t surprised by teacher, staff, or family response rates once results are posted. It is understood that many schools have scheduled student surveys or staff meeting time to be given later in the survey window. Family response rates are the most difficult to control and promote, so primary focus will be on monitoring those rates and allowing schools to provide each other with advice on strategies to increase those rates or to ask for support to help increase those rates as needed, during the survey window.

Student Survey FAQs:

Q: Do all students need to complete the survey at the same time or could our school schedule different blocks of time for each classroom to complete the survey?

A: Students do not need to complete the survey at the same time. Your school can spread out the time and date that best fits their schedule, but we recommend your internal window occur within the same one-week time span.

Q: How long will it take students to complete the survey?

A: The survey length will depend upon the age and reading-level of the student taking the survey. For some it may take as a little as 15 and others may require up to 45. The survey will not save mid-way so time should be allotted for students to complete the survey in one sitting. Therefore, scheduling 45 minutes would help ensure a smoother survey-taking experience.

Q: How can I help students access the link?

A: Some strategies to assist with students accessing the link would be use a QR code, a tiny url, or to add the link to existing classroom pages in Canvas, Google Classroom, or other platforms being utilized by your school. Younger students may have difficulty opening a browser and typing in a url, so any effort to make it clickable or preloaded for them will save time.

Q: How do students access the survey?

A: When prompted to enter the access code, students should enter their Student ID and then click Submit.

Q: How can we ensure that students only take the survey once?

A: Each student survey is linked to their access code (Student ID). Once they have completed the survey their access will become inactive.

Q: What if we have a student who has been enrolled all school year and their ID is not working?

A: The student’s parents/guardians may have opted the student out for the SEL Survey being administered later in March. Because the YVM and SEL Survey are being given roughly at the same time, because we the same vendor for both surveys, and because the content of both asks students about school, community, and their opinions, any student who was opted out of the SEL Survey was removed from the YVM administration list as well. We can add-back any student who has a parent that wants their student to take YVM but not SEL. Written permission from the parent can be sent to engage@apsva.us.

Family Survey FAQs:

Q: Will every parent/guardian receive a survey or just one per household?

A: The survey link for the family survey will be emailed to the guardian listed as Primary Email/Primary Guardian in the ParentVue system. Instructions will inform the family member to complete one survey per school, with the oldest child in mind. Therefore, each family receives one survey per each school a child is enrolled sent only to Primary Guardian. There may be some families who listed a different primary guardian for each child. Therefore, one parent/guardian may receive a survey for one school and the other parent/guardian may receive a survey for the other school.

Q: Will communication with families occur at the district level?

A: At the central level communication will go out through the typical channels -Friday Five, ParentSquare, Engage with APS, etc.

Staff Survey FAQs:

Q: How frequently will staff receive reminder emails?

A: Panorama Education will manage the reminder process. Their system is designed to be able to send reminders only to staff who have not yet responded. During the survey window, reminders are sent every Friday and Monday from support+arlingtonva@panoramaed.com.

Q: Staff emails went out Tuesday, February 22, but some staff say they haven’t received an email yet. What should they do?

A: The email sender will be Panorama Education Team from support+arlingtonva@panoramaed.com with the subject line “Your Voice Matters Survey- Reminder”. If you search for the sender or subject line and still don’t find an email, please email support+arlingtonva@panoramaed.com to have the survey re-sent

Please visit one of the following links to view the questions that will be asked on the survey. 

Student Surveys for Grades 4 – 5

• English Survey Questions
• Spanish Survey Questions
• Amharic Survey Questions
• Arabic Survey Questions
• Mongolian Survey Questions   

Student Surveys for Grades 6 – 12 

• English Survey Questions
• Spanish Survey Questions
• Amharic Survey Questions
• Arabic Survey Questions
• Mongolian Survey Questions   

We understand and respect the choice of families who may decide not to participate. The deadline to opt-out student(s) from participating in this survey was February 8, 2024; however, students have the option to skip specific questions when completing the survey if they are unsure of how to answer it.

Opting out is a simple process, and we assure you that there will be no consequences for choosing not to participate.

Since the survey is voluntary, only students are required to opt-in since the test is administered to students in class during the survey administration window.

 YVM Student Opt-Out Forms