By Kathianne Boniello and Daniel Massey
Queens schools have gotten their report cards, and it turns out the news is not so bad.
In the largest school survey of parents ever conducted, about 21,000 people responded to the Board of Education’s parent survey, which included dozens of questions about the effectiveness of their child’s classroom instruction, school environment and communication.
A total of 32,396 surveys was distributed in Queens and of the 5,488 parents who responded, the majority in each of the borough’s seven school districts gave their schools a quality grade of B. About 30 percent in each Queens district graded their schools as A quality.
Schools Chancellor Harold Levy said the parent survey was “an important turning point in the way we’ve spoken to parents and with parents. It is a detailed effort to understand what parents are thinking and how we can best serve them.”
The survey, which was developed by KPMG Consulting Inc. and the Board of Ed’s Office of Financial and Management Reporting, asked parents questions ranging from their feelings on overcrowded classrooms to whether or not they have met their child’s teacher.
Nearly 125,000 surveys were distributed in May 2001 to about 10 percent of the city’s school parents, and 21,000 were returned.
Of the Queens parents who responded, 89 percent said they have met their child’s teacher and 96 percent said they regularly get their child’s report cards.
About 62 percent of borough parents said the overall climate of their child’s school was positive. More than 70 percent of parents in School District 26 in Bayside, which regularly boasts the top reading and math scores in the city, agreed that the atmosphere was positive in their children’s schools.
In School District 27 in Ozone Park, District 28 in Forest Hills and Jamaica, District 29 stretching from Queens Village to Rosedale, less than 60 percent of parents said their child’s school had a positive climate. Between 64 percent and 67 percent of parents in Glendale’s School District 24, Flushing’s District 25 and District 30 in Jackson Heights agreed their child’s school had a positive climate.
Even though Queens schools are regarded as the most overcrowded in the city, only 26 percent of the borough’s parents said their child’s school was “overcrowded to degree that it affected learning.”
Almost an equal amount of Queens parents surveyed — 25 percent — disagreed with the idea that classroom overcrowding had affected their child’s learning.
The survey also sought to evaluate how city schools communicate with parents who do not speak English.
In Queens, widely regarded as the most diverse county in the nation, parents gave the borough’s school districts high marks for providing translations at school meetings and materials like report cards and school newsletters in languages other than English.
Boroughwide, 73 percent of Queens parents who responded said they received their child’s report cards in their native language. The same number of borough parents said they got other school materials like newsletters or classroom memos in their native language as well. In Queens, 59 percent of parents said they received translations at meetings if they needed it.
The parent survey itself was distributed in a variety of languages, including Spanish, Russian, Cantonese and Haitian-Creole.
A complete breakdown of Queens’ answers to the Board of Ed parent survey can be found online at the Board web site, www.nycenet.edu.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
