The Alpena Public Schools Board of Education, APS administration, and I have been focused on listening to our staff and community.

Throughout each year, the district provides multiple opportunities for students, parents, staff, and the community to engage with the district. Opportunities range from one-on-one interactions with staff and administration to surveys, advisory committees for students, parents, and business owners, parent-teacher conferences, my superintendent State of the District presentations, public comment at Board of Education meetings, and more.

APS’s Strategic Planning Summit and a Rehmann survey are two examples of significant undertakings to listen to our staff and community.

In January of this year, APS administered the Rehmann Employee Engagement survey, a 20-question survey that provides organizations with an understanding of how employees perceive their experience in the workplace environment.

Rehmann defines engagement as “the state in which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.” Seventy-three percent of our employees responded to the survey, an impressive response rate, according to Rehmann. I thank our employees for sharing their feedback with us, as the only way we can improve is if we receive honest feedback.

The survey results represent the percentage of employees that, based on their responses, fall into the categories “engaged,” described as “thriving at work, passionate, enthusiastic and committed,” “not engaged,” described as “quiet quitters, checked-out, putting in time, not energy, and lack enthusiasm,” and “actively disengaged,” described as “loud quitters, act out, undermine engaged employees, and are negative or unhappy.”

Nationally, across all employers in the U.S. and Canada who have administered the survey, 34% of employees are “engaged,” 51% are “not engaged,” and 15% are “actively disengaged.”

The results for Alpena Public Schools show all employees, for the most part, mirror those national results. APS’ results are as follows: 33% are “engaged,” 53% are “not engaged,” and 14% are “actively disengaged.”

The results also provide us with a tremendous amount of data disaggregated by employee years of service, job title, building location, and more.

We must be careful not to interpret those results as a critique of our employees, but, rather, as a representation of the workplace environment. It is the leadership’s responsibility to look at those results and respond with the goal of better meeting the needs of our employees.

The next step we are taking is to meet with our employees in person and review the full results — which are far too robust to describe here — and hear from our employees as to what actions they believe the district can take to improve upon the survey results.

In addition to the survey, the other significant effort to listen to our staff and community was our Strategic Planning Summit, which took place in February.

The summit brought together members from the community, parents, students, teachers, office assistants, instructional assistants, custodians, bus drivers, directors, administrators, board members, and community leaders. In all, more than 50 people participated.

For a little background, APS last adopted a Strategic Plan in July 2020 — four months after public schools closed because of COVID-19. Suffice it to say, the world and education have gone through some challenging times since the adoption of the plan, and we are still working to truly understand the impact the pandemic had not only on our organization but the students and staff we serve. We made progress on the strategic plan in the years since but now is the time to revisit the plan.

At the summit, participants were asked to share what they believed to be the strengths and weaknesses of the district. When all were recorded, the group had the opportunity to rank their priorities using their three votes (each participant had three sticky dots to place next to their three top priorities).

A total of 156 — 76 strengths and 80 weaknesses — were identified by the group. Priorities identified by the group were “staffing,” with 40 votes, “behavior,” with 27 votes, “academic outcomes,” with 24 votes, and “mental health,” with 19 votes. “Transportation” received eight votes, and a variety of other strengths and weaknesses received fewer than five votes.

At our annual board workshop this past Thursday, the board and I used information gathered from the summit to create a vision statement and talked about the next steps in the development of actionable steps and goals to address the priority areas identified.

I was thrilled that several of those who participated in the summit in February attended the public meeting of the board to continue to have input on that very important process.

The Board of Education, our administration, and I are focused on listening to our staff and community. I urge you to be a part of the conversation by engaging with the district, especially as we move forward in our strategic planning process.

As our new draft vision states in part, “We will leverage our relationship with our families and community, all while prioritizing the well-being of every student and member of our staff.”

Listening to staff and community is one way we can leverage our relationships.

Dave Rabbideau, Ph.D., has been the proud superintendent of Alpena Public Schools since September 2020. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Alpena, and he, along with his wife, five children, and dog, Mabel, is active in sports, school, and community events.