Parent/Caregiver Survey Project

Southeast Seattle Education Coalition (SESEC) & University of Washington College of Education joint project on Parent/Caregiver Data.

Parents and caregivers are children’s first teachers. Families know their children from the time a child joins the family and are with their children through the long term. Teachers and educators also have a stake in ensuring children learn and grow with community values.

U.W. College of Education piloted a method to involve parents/caregivers, educators, and community members in prioritizing and gathering data on what is important to all of these groups. SESEC will use the project to help determine what parents/caregivers in SE consider important and use that data to advocate for changes. Parents and SESEC partners are designing the survey questions and will help to launch and collect survey results.

Links to the surveys

SE Seattle Family Survey – English
SE Seattle Family Survey – Chinese
SE Seattle Family Survey – Somali
SE Seattle Family Survey – Spanish
SE Seattle Family Survey – Tagalog
SE Seattle Family Survey – Vietnamese

The project is broken in six phases over twelve meetings in 6-8 months:

1. Parent/Caregiver and Community Interest and Priorities—Identify common issues and priorities to determine what is important to parents and community members
2. Prioritize what questions will be asked and what data is collected
3. Engage—Collect data via parent/caregiver surveys
4. Make Sense of the Data—Share the data, collaborate, and ask what questions do we have
5. Strategize—Determine the key messages we need to learn and share from the dataset
6. Act—Change policies and practices to address what was heard in the surveys

Organizations and Schools Involved

• Chinese Information Service Center (CISC)
• East African Community Services (EACS)
• Graham Hill Elementary School
• Maple Elementary School
• SESEC Parent Partners
• YMCA Powerful Schools

Benefits

• Involve parent/caregiver community in shaping the direction of your organization or school
• Receive reliable data analysis from U.W. on what parents/caregivers are thinking
• Support advocacy efforts
• Community connections

Additional Information

• Written surveys are available in the following languages: Amharic, Chinese, English, Oromo, Russian, Spanish, Somali, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Vietnamese. Interpreters are available upon request.
• Confidentiality—Data will be kept confidential and used at an aggregate level. Students will not be identifiable and the survey is opt-in for parents/caregivers to take.
• SESEC will share the data with project partners and tentatively planning a community report in early 2016For more information or questions contact Erin Okuno, Southeast Seattle Education Coalition, [email protected].