Collecting data and views from high school parents proving to be a challenge for the school board.

By Pepper Parr

March 2, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

The Board of Education felt it was important that they collect the views of as many parents as possible on the possible closing of high schools in Burlington.

They did a survey of people who attended a public meeting in December using hand held devices for people to respond to questions put up on a large screen.

Parents at a December meeting were asked to give their views on a number of questions – the results were heavily skewed.

That one didn’t go all that well for a couple of reasons. The audience was heavily skewed towards parents from Central high school. People from that school showed up. Most people thought the questions were poorly thought through. The people who put the survey together did admit that it wasn’t their finest hour.

The details of that survey can be found at LINK

The Board decided that they really needed input and feedback and set up a second survey that is being done on line and is taking place now.

To complete the current Board of Education on-line survey CLICK here.

Students doing the on-line survey at the public meeting earlier this week.

The original intention of this on-line survey was to set it up so that every household with high school students in Burlington would get a dedicated link to the survey. This would have given the response some validity.
Turns out that somewhere between firm doing the survey and the technical people at the board there was a failure to communicate or someone didn’t know what they were doing.

The survey is on an open link – which means anyone can respond and do so as often as they wish.

Given the level of feelings on the issue of closing a high school in Burlington you can just see families sitting at their keyboards and responding to the survey for as long as they can stay awake.

We received a graphic that will add a little humour to a situation that isn’t funny anymore.