Parents of Cleveland Metropolitan School District students care most about educational quality and school safety when considering where to enroll their children, according to a recent survey.
More than 90% of the surveyed CMSD parents agreed that the “quality of classroom instruction” was their most important consideration when choosing a school for their children. Parents with children in other schools, as well as residents without children, also identified educational quality as their No. 1 concern.
The survey was conducted in April by the Cleveland Transformation Alliance (CTA), which monitors and reports on the quality of schools throughout Cleveland, and by the Baldwin Wallace University Community Research Institute. The survey asked more than 500 Cleveland-area residents a series of questions about what factors they consider when choosing schools for their children. Of those surveyed, 182 had children in school. About 70% of those children attended CMSD schools.
Educational quality means more than academics
Meghann Marnecheck, the executive director of CTA, said quality of education encompasses many factors.
“It’s the quality of teachers,” she said. “It’s having access to art, it’s having access to music, it’s having access to all of those subjects that help make students well rounded.”
Safety of neighborhoods was a top concern of parents with students in private or charter schools
The survey, funded by the St. Luke’s Foundation, also showed that safety was top of mind for Cleveland parents. School safety ranked as a top consideration for all parents, but the safety of neighborhoods surrounding a school was more important to parents with students in private or charter schools than to CMSD parents.
CMSD parents prioritized class size and how well a school updates them about their child’s progress while charter or private school parents ranked extracurricular offerings higher on their lists.
Marnecheck said the data could help provide jumping-off points for deeper research into why different parents value certain characteristics of their schools. CTA, which was created as part of The Cleveland Plan – the public-private partnership that has helped guide education reform in the city – talks with parents and students to better understand how to help them choose schools. Marnecheck said the survey results confirm much of what she’s heard in conversations.
“It was good to see the validation of that for families and to see it so clearly,” Marnecheck said. “I think we have conversations about that with our board and with the community at large, but now we have data to back up the statements that we had made in the past.”
This survey comes as CMSD’s projected budget shortfall has forced the district to make cuts to its administrative staff and out-of-school programming and to rethink how the district operates. The district is seeking voters’ approval for an 8.6-mill levy on the ballot this November.
