SEA Family Engagement Staff Survey

OMB Control No: XXXX – XXXX

Expiration Date: XX/XX/XXXX

Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC)

State Education Agency Survey

THE PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995

This collection of information is voluntary and will be used to provide the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, with information to help refine and guide program development in the area of family engagement. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 60 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB number and expiration date for this collection are XXXX-XXXX, Exp: XX/XX/XXX. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to [email protected] and reference the OMB Control Number XXXX-XXXX. Do NOT return the completed survey to this address.

Welcome to the State Education Agency survey on Statewide Family Engagement Centers!

The U.S. Department of Education’s Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFECs) are intended to help state education agencies (SEAs), local education agencies (LEAs), schools, and families improve educational outcomes for all students and close achievement gaps by improving the quality of family engagement in their children’s education. This survey includes questions about your agency’s or division’s needs for capacity building in family engagement, ways the SFECs have helped to meet those needs, remaining barriers to capacity building, and overall satisfaction with SFEC services. We are asking key contacts of agencies that have received assistance from the SFEC to take part in this survey. The U.S. Department of Education is sponsoring this study and has hired Mathematica to carry it out. You can help the U.S. Department of Education improve supports and services offered by the SFECs by participating in this survey.

We know your time is valuable, and we thank you in advance for your time completing this survey! Your responses are vital to the success of this important U.S. Department of Education study.

Some questions may require input from others you work with, including those who work closely with the SFEC. You may use the paper survey sent as a PDF document in the survey invitation email to first obtain their responses before entering them into the web survey.

Notice of Confidentiality

Your responses on the survey will be used only for research purposes. Study reports will not name you as an individual. Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of the Institute of Education Sciences (The Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, Title I, Part E, Section 183).

The report prepared for the study will summarize findings across the sample and will not associate responses with a specific individual.

If you have any questions about this survey, please contact Elizabeth Mugo at [email protected].

Here are a few important points:

Use the “Go Back” and “Next” buttons at the bottom of the screen to navigate through the survey. DO NOT use the back button on your browser.

The survey will take you about 30 minutes to complete.

Your answers will automatically save each time you use the “Next” button. You do not have to complete the survey in one sitting. You may log out at any time and when you log back in, the survey will automatically place you at the question where you left off.

Before beginning, please review our definitions of terms that we will use to categorize activities. Knowing these can help you understand the context of certain questions:

• Family engagement means the participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning, social-emotional development, and other school activities, including: (1) an integral role in assisting their child’s learning; (2) active involvement in their child’s education at school; (3) being partners in their child’s education, and inclusion, in decision making and on advisory committees; and (4) inclusion in carrying out other activities.

• Technical assistance activities, as defined in this survey, are activities that require the recipient to reach out to access the service, as opposed to being actively recruited to participate in the service. In general, these services are broadly disseminated so that a potentially unlimited number of recipients may obtain access. They may also require a time-limited amount of effort by the SFEC because the materials, once created, do not need to be repeated or tailored to multiple audiences. Some common examples of these activities include large conferences that any interested parties may attend, resources on websites, webinars, framework implementation guides, and meetings with partner networks.

• Direct services, as defined in this survey, are services that require both SFECs to actively recruit participation as well as recipients (families, schools, LEAs) to accept involvement. These services are not broadly disseminated but rather provided to a targeted set of recipients, with limited SEA assistance, to families, schools, and LEAs. The goal of direct services is to intensively support families, schools, and LEAs in enhancing their engagement within the context of specific, identified needs to improve student achievement and behaviors for school success. These activities may be time-intensive for the SFEC because they include, for example, face-to-face or virtual interactive parent communities; intensive trainings for school and LEA leaders, teams, and educators to implement specific family engagement interventions or strategies (such as supporting families in guiding homework or communities of practice); home visits to families; and training parents in family literacy. Direct services typically require more active engagement by the SFEC and customers than does technical assistance.

Thank you for participating in the State Education Agency survey.

The first questions ask about alignment and support of the SFEC on your state’s family engagement priorities.

1. What are the current top state priorities related to family engagement?

SELECT FIVE, REPRESENTING THE TOP 5 PRIORITIES

1 □ Literacy (e.g., family literacy approaches, financial literacy)

2 □ STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)

3 □ Educational choice (e.g., school choice, opportunities to create a personalized path for learning)

4 □ Course placement and academic tracking (e.g., math or reading placement)

5 □ Dual capacity building (an approach for family–school partnerships that emphasizes mutually respectful relationships among schools, families, and communities, where these groups collaborate intentionally to support family engagement)

6 □ Social-emotional learning/Social-emotional development

7 □ Family–school communication and engagement around academic achievement

8 □ College and career readiness

9 □ Evidence-based direct services to families

10 □ Providing supports for families of disadvantaged students, such as help understanding individualized learning or development plans (IEPs or IDPs)

11 □ Racism, social justice, or equity

12 □ Remote and hybrid instruction (in response to COVID-19)

13 □ Mental health awareness and school-based support

14 □ School reentry and hesitancy on behalf of families in response to COVID-19

15 □ Access to technology

16 □ Chronic absenteeism

17 □ Distance learning approaches (outside of COVID-19 response)

18 □ Language accessibility for English learner students

19 □ Accommodations for populations with disabilities

20 □ Other topics (Please describe)

2. Overall, to what extent have the SFEC activities aligned with the state-level family engagement priorities?

MARK ONE ONLY

1  Strongly aligned

2  Somewhat aligned

3  Somewhat not aligned

4  Not at all aligned

3. Since the start of the grant period, in what priority areas and topics has the SFEC most commonly supported the work of the state education agency?

Select FIVE, REPRESENTING TOP 5 MOST SUPPORTED CURRENTLY:

1 □ Literacy (e.g., family literacy approaches, financial literacy)

2 □ STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)

3 □ Educational choice (e.g. school choice, opportunities to create a personalized path for learning)

4 □ Course placement and academic tracking (e.g., math or reading placement)

5 □ Dual capacity building (an approach for family–school partnerships that emphasizes mutually respectful relationships among schools, families, and communities, where these groups collaborate intentionally to support family engagement)

6 □ Family–school communication and engagement around academic achievement

7 □ College and career readiness

8 □ Evidence-based direct services to families

9 □ Engaging families of students with disabilities

10 □ Racism, social justice, or equity

11 □ Remote and hybrid instruction (in response to COVID-19)

12 □ Social-emotional learning/Social-emotional development

13 □ Mental health awareness and school-based support

14 □ School reentry and hesitancy on behalf of families in response to COVID-19

15 □ Access to technology

16 □ Chronic absenteeism

17 □ Distance learning approaches (outside of COVID-19 response)

18 □ Language accessibility for English learner students

19 □ Accommodations for populations with disabilities

20 □ Other (Please describe)

4. Did the SFEC increase your state’s capacity for family engagement in the following areas? Please mark whether capacity increased at the SEA, district (or LEA), or school level. If the SFEC did not increase capacity, please mark “Not applicable.”

	Select one per row
	SEA	LEA	School	Not applicable
a. Identify pressing needs or priorities related to family engagement	1 	2 	3 	4 
b. Develop and carry out trainings related to family engagement	1 	2 	3 	4 
c. Disseminate information or provide technical assistance related to family engagement	1 	2 	3 	4 
d. Monitor, measure, or evaluate strategies or programs related to family engagement	1 	2 	3 	4 
e. Provide direct family engagement services	1 	2 	3 	4 
f. Reduce barriers or address challenges in implementing the technical assistance or direct services activities related to family engagement	1 	2 	3 	4 
g. Other (Please describe)	1 	2 	3 	4 

The next questions ask about your SEAs collaboration with the SFEC, including your satisfaction with the overall partnership and relationship with the SFEC (alignment, collaboration, capacity building, sustainability).

5. On average, how often do you or someone else from the state education agency typically meet with or communicate with the SFEC? Please include all types of communications, such as email exchanges, telephone calls, and in-person or virtual meetings.

MARK ONE ONLY

1  About once a week

2  About 2 or 3 times per month

3  About once a month

4  About quarterly

5  About 1 or 2 times a year

6  About once per year

7  We do not have meetings with the SFEC

6. What SFEC direct services activities has the state collaborated on with the SFEC since the start of the grant period?

MARK ALL THAT APPLY

1 □ Communicating with parents about education matters in state high-priority areas

2 □ Conducting school or district personnel topic-specific training (e.g., in assisting family literacy, family math, family involvement in student course choice/placement) in person or virtually in state high-priority areas

3 □ Conducting training to encourage family shared/participatory leadership (e.g., advocating for children or understanding the school or district system, encouraging shared/participatory leadership (examples may include family leadership institutes, action teams and partnerships, school improvement teams, parent advisory committees, or other teams and coalitions that encourage family–school partnerships in state high-priority areas)

4 □ Conducting district or school training, coaching, or mentoring to support improved school relationships and environments for families (e.g., race and equity trainings, creating family school “walk-throughs” to try to create family-friendly schools) in state high-priority areas

5 □ Other direct services in state high-priority areas (Please describe)

7. Have the areas of collaboration with the state education agency changed over the course of the grant period, from 2018 until now?

Select one or more

1 □ Yes, the areas of collaboration have changed.

2 □ No, we have not changed the areas of collaboration over the grant period.

8. Overall, how satisfied have you been with the partnership between your SFEC and the state education agency?

MARK ONE ONLY

1  Very satisfied

2  Somewhat satisfied

3  Somewhat dissatisfied

4  Very dissatisfied

9. To what extent have the following issues been challenging in your collaboration with the SFEC over the course of the grant period?

	Select one per row
	Largely challenging	Somewhat challenging	Not at all challenging	Not applicable
a. State education agency staffing capacity	1 	2 	3 	4 
b. Time required to collaborate	1 	2 	3 	4 
c. Support or engagement from the state education agency	1 	2 	3 	4 
d. Communication between SFEC and SEA	1 	2 	3 	4 
e. Agreement on populations to serve	1 	2 	3 	4 
f. SFEC staffing capacity	1 	2 	3 	4 
g. SFEC staff knowledge and skills capacity	1 	2 	3 	4 
h. Cooperation from SFEC staff	1 	2 	3 	4 
i. Other issues (Please describe)	1 	2 	3 	4 

10. Thinking back to March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first affected LEAs, schools, and families with immediate and pressing needs, how supportive was the SFEC in doing the following?

	Select one per row
	Strongly supportive	Somewhat supportive	Somewhat not supportive	Not at all supportive	Not applicable
a. Assisting LEAs	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 
b. Assisting schools	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 
c. Assisting families	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 

Thank you for participating in the State Education Agency survey!