Survey Results to Help Guide Centralia School Board’s Decisions

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The Centralia School District recently completed a survey of the community it serves in an attempt to pinpoint opinions and attitudes on budget priorities, student achievement and school programs, among other items.

In all, there were 800 responses, of which 529 were from community members, 208 from district staff and 63 responses from Centralia students. The responses from the students were funneled into the combined response category because of the small amount of participation.

“Honestly I was really surprised by the numbers,” Ed Petersen, communications and public relations coordinator for the district, said. “I was expecting 300 or 400 responses, and we ended up with 800.”

The top three budget priority rankings compiled from the combined responses included the maintenance and repair of school buildings as the highest priority.

The second-highest priority was new technology, textbooks and curriculum, while the third highest was to enhance STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — programs. 

The importance of each differed between the stakeholders, but the combined community and staff responses showed the groups for the most part wanted the same thing. One major difference was in the staff responses, reducing class sizes was the third highest priority, an item that did not make the list in combined and community responses. 

The highest priority for staffing also varied between the combined, staff and community answers.

According to the community responses, 30 percent said the highest priority was to pay teachers more to enhance quality and workforce stability. The staff voted that as their third priority, out of four total with 20 percent.

The staff’s highest priority for staffing was to hire more employees to reduce class sizes, with 34 percent. 

Other questions included if behavioral expectations in the district are higher than in most districts; whether the district does a good job balancing interests in sports, academics and the arts; and whether the district does a good job of educating all of Centralia’s students. 

The survey was the most comprehensive one completed in recent years. Although the district conducts parent and staff surveys regularly, it has been a long time since they’ve done one on a community-level, Petersen said. 

The process was driven by the board of directors, who wanted to get the community’s input on important issues within the school district.

The results have been used in a couple community presentations so far, Petersen said.



Board President Kim Ashmore said the survey played an important role in making sure the board members are aligned with what the community wanted. 

“Each board member has their own individual goals, own special interests of what they’d like to see the district do,” he said. “This gives us an idea to see if our vision and our goals are aligned with what the community is thinking.”

Ashmore said the board will go through the results at an upcoming meeting. The responses will also be used to create future budgets.

Each board member came up with three to five goals, visions or target areas for the upcoming budget. Now with the community’s feedback, the board can make sure what they deem important is also what the community wants. 

Ashmore said the top three budget priorities, technology, facilities and STEM programs, are related. 

STEM ties in with the facilities, as well as technology, Ashmore noted, after the district received a $3.6 million grant to build a new STEM building at the high school. 

So far the district has collected $21,650 of the needed $100,000 donation to secure the grant funding. 

Ashmore thanked the community for all of its responses.

“It’s important we gauge what their vision and their goals are so we can incorporate that into a budget planning process,” he said. 

He said the survey will be conducted on a more regular basis to help gain outside input.

“If not an annual thing, I think we’ll do it every couple of years,” Ashmore said.