BENTONVILLE — The School District is developing an exit survey to help officials better understand why some families are leaving the district.
A draft of the survey will be presented at the School Board’s next meeting.
“In a world where choice is getting to be more rampant, we want to be in tune with why people are making the decision to leave,” said Michael Poore, district superintendent. “We just want to use it as an opportunity to learn.”
Some families pull their children out of school because they must move out of the area, usually because someone has accepted a new job elsewhere.
But residents have other educational options besides the local school district. Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy is one of a few open-enrollment charter schools in the region. It opened on Melissa Drive in August. About half of its 400 students come from the Bentonville School District.
Other families may decide to home-school their children or put them in private schools.
AT A GLANCE
Exit Survey
The proposed family exit survey developed by the Bentonville School District asks parents to respond with either “yes,” “most of the time,” “unsure,” “not usually,” or “no” to the following questions:
- The school tries to bring out the best in each student.
- Discipline problems are competently handled.
- Relationships between teachers and parents are strong.
- Communications are clear on how to contact teachers and administrators.
- The school takes parent concerns seriously.
- I feel the environment at school is safe for students.
The survey also asks parents how satisfied they were with the curriculum and variety of programs offered, where their student will go after leaving the school, why they are leaving the district and what aspects of the student’s program they were most satisfied with.
Source: Bentonville School District
Mary Ley, district communications director, put the survey together by using three or four models that she had found. She said she solicited input from school principals and other central office administrators.
Ley said she wasn’t aware of any other Arkansas school districts that attempt to survey exiting families.
The idea for an exit survey came up at a School Board meeting Nov. 5. Wendi Cheatham, board president, said she had a friend who pulled her son out of the district, and no one bothered to ask her why.
“It was a little bit upsetting to her,” Cheatham said at the meeting.
If the surveys can help identify a deficiency in what the district offers, that would be helpful, she said.
Grant Lightle, board member, agreed.
“I kind of think that’s part of the vision is that we have a school district that meets the needs of the community,” Lightle said. “And when we see people dropping out, apparently for those families, they didn’t feel we were.”
The district’s enrollment was 15,026 as of Dec. 4, according to Brad Reed, director of student services. It was 15,081 on Oct. 1. Enrollment grew 1.3 percent this year after a 5.4 percent increase last year.
The district tracks attendance, but not how many students come or go, Reed said.
Lauren Parrish of Centerton pulled her third-grader out of Elm Tree Elementary in March. Her son, 10, has autism and she felt the district was not meeting his needs.
Now she home-schools him as well as her kindergarten student. Her son is doing better than ever, she said, adding that home-schooling has been a “life saver” for her family. She had had her son in Bentonville schools since he was in kindergarten.
No one asked her why she was pulling out her son, but there was never much of a need, she said.
“It was very obvious. We had put up quite a fight all year long,” Parrish said.
Ley said many residents of the School District home-school their children.
“I think we could fill a whole other (school) building with people who home-school,” Ley said.