Every year, the Aliso Niguel administrators put out a student survey for all students in the school to fill out regarding the school’s performance as well as the general school environment and its best and worst attributes. This survey is an effort on the part of the school to connect with students and take their opinions into consideration.
As of recently, Aliso has put out a survey for students to take during their home base tutorial in the weeks directly following winter break. This sets up the school to know about any issues and concerns and have time to possibly implement changes for the following school year.
This year, the student survey closely precedes another event of a similar vein, the Week of Understanding. Bringing back Keith Hawkins after his success last year, the school has clearly been making efforts to make students feel heard and enrich the social atmosphere and openness for students.
Across the student survey, different types of questions were asked, ranging from asking students to rank the school in different aspects or even longer text box questions allowing students to share their thoughts on topics or suggest improvements.
The majority of questions were regarding students’ feelings of physical, social, and emotional health and safety. The school was also trying to evaluate students’ use and enjoyment of different locations and services on campus in order to optimize their benefits across campus.
For example, the library as well as the College and Career Center were some of the services asked about, questioning students on how useful they found said services.
Students were also asked about their use of the counseling services on campus, as both the academic and guidance counselors and therapists from the Wellness and Prevention Center are there to provide mental and emotional support for students.
The school has been implementing many changes over the last couple years, though, recently there have been more changes in the school’s function than ever before. Areas of ANHS change significantly every year, areas including policies and expectations. The tardy policy, tutorials, home bases, and even regulations at the library are only some of the changes that frequently take place over the years. This lines up with the school’s recent timeline of adding these student surveys to further find out what the students want.
Assistant Principal Mrs. Hosseini who is in charge of said survey, says, “Any time we conduct a survey, we use that as data which drives. WASC was so valuable that we want to give it annually as we want students to have a voice. We, the administrative team, will need to review the survey and see what we need to improve and what to implement.”
Many students also have thoughts on the administration of these surveys requesting student opinions on the actions of school administrators.
Laura Richards (12), for example, says about the survey, “I’m glad they decided to consider student opinion more in past years, but I’m skeptical of how much they actually use the survey.”
Regardless of the specifics and beliefs about the utility of the annual student survey, the school’s interest in taking students’ opinions into account sets a positive basis going forward for the school to improve for students and staff. Allowing students to have a say in the running of a place they have to be every day, however small, gives them opportunity to make change and also understand a key part of society: voicing their needs.
