BRIGHTON CSD School climate surveys helped New York’s Brighton Central School District identify key priorities for its strategic plan, enabling district leaders to embody a culture of kindness and respect.

C R E AT I N G A S A F E A N D S U P P O RT I V E S C H O O L E N V I RO N M E N T

BRIGHTON CSD CREATING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

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THE LANDSCAPEThe safety, health, and wellness of its students is a primary concern for the Brighton Central School District.

Superintendent Dr. Kevin McGowan and his staff have worked hard to build a caring culture, in which students

treat each other with kindness and respect. That should come as no surprise, given the community’s rich

history of tolerance and inclusion.

Located in a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., where

luminaries such as Frederick Douglass and Susan

B. Anthony once fought for equal rights and social

justice, Brighton is an economically diverse community

that values education and inclusiveness for families

and students. Its residents include faculty and staff

from the area’s many colleges, including the University

of Rochester and RIT, as well as refugees looking for

a better life for their children. School district leaders

make a point to serve these communities equally.

“This has always been a place where different types

of families, including same-sex couples, have been

embraced,” McGowan says. “Long before marriage

equality was achieved, it was a place that offered same-

sex partner benefits to employees. In more recent years,

our community has been a champion of transgender

rights, and our school system passed the first board

policy of its kind supporting transgender students

and staff—without any objection or controversy at all.

It was just a reflection of who we are.”

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With a focus on empathy and inclusion, it was only

natural that Brighton would form a committee

to discuss students’ character development. The

committee includes

representation from

a broad range of

stakeholder groups, such

as churches, temples, the

local police force, town

board members, and

school staff.

“We also have a wellness

committee focused on

very similar concepts,”

McGowan says. “At some

point, all of this work

merged into what we

call the Brighton Beliefs.

It’s our own homegrown

character education

program. We’re constantly

instilling the qualities of integrity, self-control,

respect, kindness, and responsibility throughout our

students’ K12 experience.”

The Brighton Beliefs form the basis for the district’s

identity, and they model the culture that district

leaders have tried to instill.

“At the classroom level, these beliefs inform how

teachers approach their classroom rules,” McGowan

says. “At the school level, principals work to set

expectations for everyone in the building. We have

made these beliefs a part of every conversation,

and they are even printed on our letterhead. We’re

constantly preaching this mantra of supporting each

child and every family.”

Not content with the success they had already

achieved, district leaders wanted to know how

they could further improve the learning climate for

students. McGowan and his staff were eager to learn

what students, parents, and staff thought about what

programs were working within the district—and what

areas still needed improvement. This information

would help shape Brighton’s strategic plan for the

next several years.

THE CHALLENGE

We’re constantly instilling the qualities of integrity, self-control, respect, kindness, and responsibility throughout our students’ K12 experience.”DR. KEVIN McGOWAN, SUPERINTENDENT

www.bcsd.org

Brighton, New York

3,700 K12 students in four schools

GOALS• Gather feedback from stakeholders about what’s working and what can be improved.• Use this information to develop a strategic plan with yearly goals and objectives.• Build on the district’s already impressive culture of kindness and respect.

APPROACHEngage all stakeholder groups—students, staff, parents, and the larger community—with school climate surveys and focus groups.

PRODUCTS

Engage

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Engage from K12 Insight

Learn how your district can do this at www.k12insight.com/engage.

THE SOLUTIONBrighton Central School District partnered with

K12 Insight to administer a series of school climate

surveys using the company’s industry-leading Engage

platform. Through Engage, K12 Insight helps district

leaders create reliable, third-party surveys that ask

insightful questions and elicit honest feedback from

stakeholders, then analyze the results to help district

leaders draft a plan for meaningful change.

With K12 Insight’s assistance, Brighton developed

an initial school climate survey in fall 2015 to

gather community feedback in several formats and

languages, both online and on paper.

“We took those results and worked with K12 Insight

to develop an additional survey in spring 2016,”

McGowan says. This follow-up survey explored the

findings from the first survey in more detail. “We

asked stakeholders to weigh in further on areas

that we wanted more clarification about,” he says.

“We also proposed ideas for how we could address

concerns that came up in the first survey and asked

people what they thought about those strategies.”

Surveys as conversationsBrighton Central School District in N.Y. used K12 Insight’s Engage

survey solution to learn how safe students felt in school.

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What Brighton learned Overall, the community feedback Brighton received

was extremely positive. “People were very supportive

of what we were doing in our schools,” McGowan

says. “But as we drilled down into the data, we found

specific areas where we felt we could do more.”

For instance, although students reported that they

felt safe at school, the surveys revealed that bullying

off campus was still a problem—especially cyber

bullying. This insight has prompted McGowan and his

staff to place more emphasis on teaching students

about proper online behavior.

District leaders also recognized opportunities to

engage students in more advanced coursework and

use more technology for instruction.

“Seventy-four percent of our students leave us

having taken at least one AP class in high school,”

McGowan says. “That’s really good, but we’d like to

see that number become even higher. We’d also like

to see more participation in advanced coursework

among traditionally underrepresented students. That

was an area we thought we could do better, and the

survey results confirmed that.”

Moving from data to action Once Brighton had the data from its surveys, the

district convened a focus group consisting of some

50 educators, parents, and administrators. “We

involved stakeholders very deeply in that process,”

McGowan says. “They helped us determine what we

should do, and then our leadership team developed

the how and the why.”

From this process emerged a broad strategic

plan, called the “Brighton Blueprint,” with annual

objectives addressing five areas of focus: 1. safety, security, and wellness; 2. rigorous coursework for all students; 3. creativity and innovation; 4. early childhood programming; and 5. instructional technology.

Under safety, security, and wellness, for instance,

strategies for the 2016-17 school year include

studying how to provide a school day that meets

the developmental needs of students (including a

later start time) and providing additional security

measures for after-school activities, while still

maintaining an open and welcoming environment.

Under creativity and innovation, one of the goals

for the 2017-18 school year is to identify real-world

problem solving opportunities for students to

engage in with a global community.

Key benefits of the surveys Collecting feedback from the school community not

only ensures that Brighton remains on the right path,

it also paves the way for stakeholder support.

“Many of the strategies that we included in our

strategic plan were ideas that we as a leadership

team believed we should do,” McGowan says. “But

having that data triangulated by the community, and

confirming that these ideas were their desires as

well, helps us earn buy-in among parents and staff.”

The surveys were “essential in demonstrating to the

community that this wasn’t just one person’s plan,”

he adds. “It was a community plan for building on

our success.”

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Moving forward, McGowan and his staff are working

to implement the strategies outlined in the Brighton

Blueprint. Their measure for success is whether they

can recommend specific programs or changes based

on the work they do in each of those five focus areas.

Listening to stakeholders’ concerns and using this

feedback in their decision making reflects Brighton’s

values of openness and inclusion. It has strengthened

an already close-knit community—and K12 Insight’s

expertise in survey development and data analysis

have played a key role in this success.

“K12 Insight staff members were ‘third party’ experts

who we could count on for thoughtful discussion,

prompt responses, and comprehensive analysis of

our data,” McGowan concludes. “K12 Insight was

important to our development of an objective data

set that could represent community sentiments in

driving more authentic and meaningful strategic

planning.”

THE FUTURE

RESULTS A strategic plan that reflects the community’s wishes and priorities. Stakeholder buy-in and support for the district’s initiatives.

A decision-making process that reflects the district’s values of openness and inclusion.

K12 Insight staff members were ‘third party’ experts who we could count on for thoughtful discussion, prompt responses, and comprehensive analysis of our data.” DR. KEVIN McGOWAN, SUPERINTENDENT