Parents/guardians of Fayetteville-Manlius students will be invited to participate in a confidential and anonymous survey at the end of March. The survey, aimed at evaluating the school environment, will also include custom questions related to student cell phone use and school start times.
Governor Hochul has recommended, as a part of her executive budget proposal, that all school districts enact a student cell phone use policy before the start of the 2025-26 school year, which may include a “bell-to-bell” ban. The F-M Board of Education will use the survey responses about cell phones to help craft a policy as required by the Governor’s proposal.
The second set of custom questions will inquire about school start times. In 2019, the district partnered with Dr. Daniel Lewin, of the National Children’s Medical Center, to prepare a recommendation on potential changes to school start times. With construction at F-M High School more than halfway complete, the district has decided to revisit the topic of school start times and is considering potential changes to school schedules. Survey participants will have the opportunity to provide feedback on school start times and a final question will elicit interest to serve on a School Start Time Committee with district administration and staff. The committee will serve as an advisory group with the intent of making a recommendation about school start times and schedules to the board. If any changes were to be made to school start times or schedules, the district would communicate that change one year in advance. More information about the district’s school start time study, including past surveys, community forums and reports are available online.
The district has partnered with Research and Marketing Strategies (RMS), a third-party area market research firm, to administer the parent/guardian climate survey. The online survey will be sent to F-M parents/guardians on March 24 via email from Research@RMSresults.com (families should check their spam folder if they don’t find the email in their inbox).
The parent/guardian who is listed in position 1 within SchoolTool will receive the survey. The first question of the survey will ask parents/guardians if they would like for the survey to be sent to another parent/guardian. For families with multiple students, the survey will ask you about your oldest student; however, you will have the option to take the survey again for each student, or you can respond to one survey for all of your students.
The survey will remain open for 3 weeks. While this survey is not required, it only takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete, and the district strongly encourages everyone to participate. The higher the survey response rate, the more statistically valid the survey results.
Evaluating the school environment is one of the priority area initiatives of the district’s strategic plan, as directed by the board of education. The parent/guardian climate survey is the continuation of a multi-year, district-wide study being conducted with F-M students, staff, and parents.
The district will continue to share key findings from these surveys as RMS compiles the research.