Houston ISD is reporting overwhelming favorability among parents in the district from its winter family sentiment survey, but respondents reported lower levels of confidence when asked if the district is improving or headed in the right direction.
More than 11,000 parents and guardians responded to the winter family sentiment survey conducted over a two-week period in December gauging their perception of the school district, which has been under the control of the Texas Education Agency since 2023 because of repeatedly poor academic performance by one high school.
“We’re excited that more than 90% of those families had overall positive sentiment as they thought about their experience within their campus in the district and that 84% of those families would recommend their schools to others,” said Matthew Sawyer, HISD’s deputy chief of data and impact.
Parents were asked 12 questions in the survey covering six topics including: academic challenge and quality, safety and belonging, school progress and readiness, district perception communication, special education support and communication.
The survey reports high favorability when parents were asked about their child’s academic needs being met, school safety and school communications. Black families reported the lowest level of favorability among the different racial groups when it came to their child feeling physically safe, welcome and included at school.
District preparedness earned the lowest performance rating of all the categories as 67% of parents said they believe HISD is improving or that the district is headed in the right direction. This topic also produced the largest discrepancy between schools that are part of the New Education System (NES) and those that are not. Seventy-seven percent of parents at NES campuses – which are under an instructional reform model implemented by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles – agreed the district is improving and moving in the right direction, while 62% of parents at non-NES campuses agreed.
Houston ISD spokesperson Lana Hill wrote in a statement to Houston Public Media, “During a period of significant change, it’s not unusual for overall perception to lag behind individual experiences. As families continue to see dramatic improvements and significant academic growth over time, our hope is that overall perception will continue to rise. Our focus remains on listening closely to families, strengthening instruction in every classroom, and sustaining the improvements that are already driving measurable progress. The trust reflected at the campus level is the foundation, and we’re committed to earning that same confidence districtwide.”
District perception also varied substantially between Hispanic families, which reported 76.8% favorability, and white families, which reported 37.9% favorability.
The next two lowest rated categories were school progress and readiness as well as special education support and communication. Both received 82% favorability.
The survey, which is the second since the start of the state takeover, went out to more than 40,000 parents. The district said it chose to not send the survey to every parent in the district and instead to employ “stratified random sampling.”
“We don’t send it to everybody, because while it feels more inclusive to send the survey to everyone, what we know is that response rates among different groups are very different, and so best practices nationally indicate random sampling like this helps ensure that you end up with a representative sample at the end of the day,” Sawyer said.
The district says the survey response rate nearly doubled since the last survey taken in May of last year.
“These results reflect the hard work of our educators, staff, and school leaders who are committed to student success every single day,” Miles in a news release. “Families are seeing real improvement in their schools and across HISD. We’re grateful for their confidence and will continue working to earn their trust.”
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