Report and Findings from 2017-2018 Community Feedback

St. Croix Valley Gifted announces the final report of findings from our 2017-2018 Community Feedback initiative.

Were there any big surprises? What the community shared echoes many concerns, observations, and experiences you’ve shared with us since this local MCGT chapter formed in 2012 and during our 2015 survey. It’s fair to say that reaction to current local GT supports and services is mixed, and there’s plenty of room for growth and improvement. (This is a report card after all!)

Please keep in mind that this effort was open to ALL community members from ALL school settings that overlap with our chapter’s main region. The report takes a broad St. Croix Valley focus. Mention of conditions or concerns at a specific location reflects actual remarks collected from people in this community.

• We invite local school leaders and educators to contact us with questions about this effort; to supply updates about GT services and supports you provide; and to engage in conversation about this report, this MCGT chapter, and how we might partner (local resource support for parents and teachers, guest speakers, etc.).
• We invite students, your caregivers, and community members to contact us or attend an upcoming chapter meeting for help locating support resources, advocating on students’ behalf, answering membership questions, and connecting with other local GT families who share similar experiences.

We are making the full report and findings available as .pdf files, along with a number of companion resources that take a “Goldilocks” approach to supply you with as much (or as little) information as we can to suit your time or attention span.

Visit this link to access and download:

• Final Report – The deep dive that includes the rationale, discussion of findings, charts and methods, supporting resources, recommendations, etc. A Table of Contents guides you to particular sections.
• Presentation Slides – Perfect for anyone who prefers visuals and a bullet point overview; these slides are a revised and shortened version of what we shared at our February 2018 meeting.
• At-a-Glance Action Steps – One file has an Educator and School Administrator focus. A second file is intended for the Family/Caregiver audience. These offer an at-a-glance look at our recommended actions in response to the community feedback. Looking for chapter actions steps? Our to-do list appears in the final report; see the Table of Contents for details.
• Student Voice – Student voice is a necessary and critical component of understanding what local gifted learners experience and providing relevant supports for growth and personalized learning. With permission (and that of their primary caregivers), student remarks introduce each of the community questions in our report and were collected separately from our survey process. The Student Voice file centralizes all student remarks in one place.
• Agreement and Priority – This captures data from the paper-based instrument community members used in Step Two of our process. Step Two invited people to indicate agreement with survey feedback and where their priorities are. This file includes all survey comments received in Step One and additional write-in comments received during Step Two. Discussion of feedback collection methods and measures of agreement v. priority appears in the final report.

Acknowledgments

St. Croix Valley Gifted reached out to all area schools – public, charter, parochial, and private – with details about our survey and how to access it. We thank the following people for making this report and our feedback gathering process stronger through their counsel and willingness to engage in constructive conversations about gifted learners, educational supports, and best practices:

• Carol Maleug, President, MCGT State Board of Directors
• Wendy Behrens, Gifted & Talented Education Specialist, Minnesota Department of Education, Division of Academic Standards
• Administrators, Board Directors, Faculty, and Staff at Stillwater Area Public Schools
• Peggy Doeksen, Resource Teacher at St. Croix Catholic School
• Numerous parents of St. Croix Valley area students in elementary, middle, and high school, including members of St. Croix Valley Gifted and all who attended local chapter meetings where we sought direct input to this effort
• Current and past members of the St. Croix Valley Gifted leadership team