Six years ago, when Philippe, Laurence, and the other members of the search committee that was formed to find a successor to Yves Rivaud offered me the job of head of school, they presented me with a twofold challenge: to make The École the best school possible for the children who come here, of course, but also—something much rarer—to make it a place where their parents feel at home as well.
With that aim in mind and with a view to better understanding our families’ expectations and experiences, we invite parents every semester to complete a satisfaction survey—we do the same with our staff, too. I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to reply to the surveys—I know that filling one out is not exactly top of anyone’s list of priorities. I’d also like to thank the parents who join my monthly breakfasts; they offer me another, less formal, opportunity to regularly gauge community satisfaction and work on solutions to any issues that arise.
Many thanks also to Christophe, who produced the detailed analyses on which today’s letter is based. First, some key points: we received 40 responses from parents representing 60 children, mostly in Elementary. As announced a few weeks ago, the overall satisfaction rate is excellent, which reassures us in our work and the direction the school is taking. Going into details, the item that received near-unanimous agreement is the highest scoring item “I know what is happening at The École” (Andria’s been roaming the corridors, grinning from ear to ear since she found out), while the item that generated the most mixed responses was “The hot lunch at the École is good” (although they are good, as the many colleagues who eat them every day can attest, and to be fair, lunch still received a score of 7 out of 10, which isn’t that bad).
It will come as no surprise to learn that the item that saw the greatest progression is facilities. They had been identified as a weak point in previous years, which pushed us to look for the Elementary & Middle School space that we have today (on that note, and I will come back to this in another letter, we will be making some improvements to the Maternelle Building over the summer). Families continue to appreciate The École team, have an increasingly clear understanding of the next steps in their child’s education, After-School activities have found their groove, field trips are more popular than ever, and I am pleased to read that it is easy to meet other families—an item that scored poorly last year, and we actively worked on this year. Finally, admiration for Philippe and Laurence is stronger than ever and is evident in almost every comment.
Two small disappointments: a sense of community that seems to be slightly weakening, which is disheartening—we will look into what we can do—and a stronger feeling of being excluded from decision-making at The École. On this point, I cannot deny that, as a private school without a governing board, we do not have formal mechanisms that would allow families a voting role. However, I can assure you that all major decisions are always made with children and families in mind. This survey is one example, as are my breakfasts, the work carried out in collaboration with TÉPA (many thanks to them—it is truly a pleasure to work with the officers), the apéros, drop off and dismissal at the door daily—everything parents share with us matters, and all of it contributes to making The École what it is today.