Creating Using PostSeason Parent and Player Surveys Sean

Creating & Using Post-Season Parent and Player Surveys Sean Zaborowski, CMAA Athletic Director James D. Meek, CAA Athletic Coordinator Lakeview High School St Clair Shores MIAAA Annual Conference March 21, 2015

• The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. • It's a huge responsibility to coach somebody. • All feedback is good data

LPS Strategic Plan 2014 -19 • The development of these surveys fit into the 5 year strategic plan for the District • “Inform and involve the Lakeview community through purposeful actions. ” • Stakeholders will utilize media and technology to expand lines of effective communication • Staff and students will employ a variety of methods to strengthen community relations and public perceptions • Staff will seek feedback from parents, students and community members

What is the purpose of these surveys? • Get honest (hopefully) feedback from parents and students • Get stakeholder perception of programs • Parents & athletes perception of coach & program as a whole • Reaffirm our thoughts on coaches/programs • Positive and Negative • Allows parents to share things that bug them but might not be brought to our attention • “I didn’t want this to impact my child” • “This has bothered me all season” • Growth vs. Gotcha? ?

How did we get to our current surveys? • Used to do paper/pencil surveys (2007 and prior) • Not a good survey & not very anonymous • 14 questions • Agree/Disagree • Players called down and filled out surveys with the AD present or coach administered them • Players worried coaches would see the results and recognize handwriting • Parents not asked to participate • After Fall 2013—kicked around idea of using an online survey to get feedback

How did we get to our current survey structure? • Parents/students always had a fear of retaliation from the coach • Normally upset senior parents were the ones who raised the most stink • “I’ve got nothing to lose” • Hockey Coach who is not winning as much • Football Coach who is on an exit plan • Needed data on perceived coaches actions • Using for both affirmation and corrective measures • Needed a more comprehensive survey that will be technological based and data driven • Less time required of the individuals being asked to complete the survey • Can be done away from school

Developing questions • What will be the intended use of the survey? • Additional component of the coach post season evaluation process • Continual growth for both coach and Athletic Department • 9 th grade VB coach was rated as unapproachable in the survey • What questions are important to you and your department? • Player development • Coaches professionalism • Coach communication to parents/players • We used most common “complaints” to help develop parent survey questions • Customize your questions to reflect what is important to your school community

Developing questions • No plagiarism in athletics • Researched ideas from multiple online survey examples • High School & Collegiate • Tweak found examples to fit your use • “Personalize it” for your school… (i. e. – “Use your school name / nickname”) • Ordering of questions • Keep subject matters together • Break down survey into sections- (Ex. Of Student Survey sections) • Coach Section • Player Section • Practice Section

Things to avoid when creating survey • Being too general with a question • Having too many questions • Having too many “type in” responses • Mostly point and click is best • Using complex words • “Practices ended on time” not “Practices were extended beyond the scheduled ending time” • Asking 2 things in one question • “I am satisfied with my child’s playing time and development as a player”

Survey Format Suggestions • CONSISTENCY IS KEY • Same answers for each question: • We used Strongly Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree (full spectrum), Not Applicable • All questions were phrased in the affirmative • This allows for the ease of reading data trends (i. e. Strongly Agree always means that something is true or correct, as with the answer "yes” ) • Need enough questions to gain important information but not too many to dissuade people from taking/finishing the survey • Goal was to have user take no longer than 15 minutes to complete survey • Short attention spans • More likely to complete entire survey

How do we start the survey process? • Starts at the beginning of the season • Coaches collect student email addresses for us • May have to stop a practice to get the info from the players • Set up a spreadsheet of all student emails by Sport and Level • Taper the sending of surveys upon end of season (9 th, JV, Var. after districts/playoffs) • We can pull parent emails from Power. School • Other methods we used- Having coaches collect during team meeting/ Meet the Coach Night • Set up a spreadsheet with all parent emails • Helped us to not send wrong survey to wrong group

Implementing Survey Usage • 10 -15% Survey Completion Rate is the expected norm • First round of surveys—Spring 2014 • 160 student athletes, 30 completed (18. 75%) • No Parent Survey in the Spring • Fall 2014—Round 2 • 201 Student athletes, 42 responded (21%) • 258 parents, 75 responded (29%) • Winter 2014 -15—Round 3 • 228 student athletes, 36 responded (16%) (as of 3/18/15) • 170 parents, 43 responded (25%) as of 3/18/15

What to do with the data/results? • Nothing? • Act on it? • Commend? • Reprimand? • What about a coach who gets an overall rating that is negative but is not coming back the next season? • Coach resigns • Positive responses?

How do we incorporate these into post season evaluations? • • Growth vs. Gotcha Review of the responses, get data compiled, meet with coach Perception is reality (individual coach/team) Volleyball 2014 • Varsity and 9 th grade • 9 th Football Coach not retained • Our observations were affirmed through the survey results • Comp Cheer 2015 • Varsity Football Coach voluntary resignation • We will use the items identified as a guide in hiring of our next football coach • Use data to bolster content for our pre-season coaches in-service • Breakdown individual question data trends department-wide

Parent Comments • Teaching good sportsmanship to the boys. They always shook hands with their opponents before and after a swim event. (Positive) • Joe is an excellent coach. He helps the girls in every way that he can. He teaches them and supports them. (Positive) • I think some of the older students should have received more play time on a varsity level. I think it is hard for the girls when they do not get to participate even though they made the team. (Improvement) • Starting and ending practices on time (Improvement) • I am not sure if this was the Coach's choice but please don't ever do the Hungry Howies fundraiser again. Very hard to sell and almost useless. (Improvement) • EDMODO and REMIND 101 was kept up to date and a valuable tool for both parents/students. (Positive) • I just feel the team needs a real coach and not one of the teachers. (Improvement) • Bringing donuts (he was a great coach and I can't think of any more he could do)

Corrections/Modifications • Discovered we needed to add “Not Applicable” to some questions • Sports where there was no officials or little impact by officials • Should we include a comment box at the end? • We did starting Winter 2015 for parents • One area the coach excelled? One area of improvement? • Parents of students who play multiple sports (Swim & CCX)in the same season • Survey Monkey only allows one response per email address • Parents who have students on the same team • Answers can be significantly different for each child • Opting out from Survey Monkey • Continual revising of the survey questions

MID – Season Survey? ? • Validity to using Mid-Season survey? • Help to curtail negative actions already ongoing • Fix minor problems before they become major issues • Danger of “over loading” on surveys • Decided to stay with postseason only for now

Problems • Low rate of return for student-athletes • 18%, 21%, 16% completed (Average of 18. 33% over 3 seasons) • We want 70% • How to increase student response rate? • Send social media reminders • Send reminder email from Survey Monkey • Take students to computer lab during/after a practice?

Questions/Comments? Sean Zaborowski, CMAA szaborowski@scslakeview-k 12. com 586 -445 -4000 x 2526 James D. Meek, CAA jmeek@scslakeview-k 12. com 586 -915 -4997