FHSD Releases Results of 24-25 Family Engagement Survey
More than 93% of parents and guardians surveyed this spring say they are happy with their child’s educational experience in FHSD. Just above 90% of families also agree that their child is appropriately challenged by their school’s curriculum. Forest Hills School District made a Family Engagement Survey available to all parents and guardians in May to help FHSD better understand the perspectives of families and find ways to better serve students.
The district recognizes that parents and caregivers play a critically important role in their child’s learning and school experience. The goal for this survey is to better understand and learn from the perspective of parents and guardians regarding their child's individual experience and their own involvement in the school culture. The data collected will help FHSD in our work toward improving school connections with parents and families.
The survey was conducted with Google Forms and was distributed to parents and guardians through multiple email messages. The survey was kept open for two weeks to allow families time to share their perspectives if they wished to participate. At the completion of the survey, 494 responses were received with a relatively even distribution across different grade levels.
The survey included questions that touched on a few key areas:
- Academics and Educational Experience
- Family-School Relationship
- School Culture and Safety
Regarding the academic experience at FHSD, roughly 90% of parents or more felt that teachers hold high expectations for students, the school provides necessary academic support and the curriculum is appropriately challenging. Similar numbers “agree or strongly agree” that they are generally happy with the educational experience at FHSD.
The family and school relationship results included two helpful questions that the district is considering for communication planning for the 2025-2026 school year. Email and face-to-face check-ins from staff were generally preferred (at 78.1% and 70.8% respectively) to virtual meetings (29%) or phone calls (26.2%). When asked which topics they would like to receive more information about from their child’s school, respondents selected “services to support my child’s learning and behavior needs and enhance his or her talents” (63.6%) and “what I can do at home to help my child improve or advance his/her learning” (57.2%) as the top areas.
Additionally, 97.8% of families say they are provided an opportunity to meet face-to-face with their child’s teacher at least once per year and 98.5% say they are invited to meetings to learn more about what is going on at school.
In the area of school culture and safety, 92% of families agree or strongly agree that the school helps their child feel comfortable moving from one grade level to the next. Roughly 90% or more of families report that they believe the school is a safe place to learn, is a friendly environment and respects and values all students.
Please click here to watch Superintendent Larry Hook present the full survey results at the June 2025 Board of Education meeting. You can also click here to view the presentation slides and read individual questions and results.
