Survey Results

The school division conducts several surveys each year in order to engage stakeholders in decision-making processes and gauge the priorities of our community. As an organization that embraces transparency, the school division shares survey results with the public.*

Surveys are organized by the date each survey opened, beginning with the most recent.

Portrait of a Graduate Survey

Survey Open: December 4, 2020 - December 6, 2020

Albemarle County Public Schools surveyed the community about its Portrait of a Graduate, which is meant to be a collective vision that articulates our entire community’s aspirations for all of our students. The department strove to develop the Portrait based on a local perspective, but with an eye toward the globalized society in which our students will live and work in the future.

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Community Satisfaction Survey

Survey Open: December 3, 2019 - January 3, 2020

A total of 1,577 students, parents, employees and community members participated in our Community Satisfaction Survey, which was designed not only to provide the school division with valuable operational information, but also to inform the development of our 2020-21 budget and our long-range planning decisions.

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2020-21 Calendar

Freshman Seminar

Student Survey Open: April 12 – May 3, 2019
Teacher Survey Open: October 23 – November 23, 2018

Albemarle County Public Schools introduced Freshman Seminar, an advisory period focused on relationship building and meeting the social-emotional and career development needs of students, in the 2018-19 school year. Two months into the initiative, the division surveyed Freshman Seminar teachers to collect feedback on implementation and identify areas for improvement. Then, in the final quarter of the school year, the division surveyed Freshman Seminar students to evaluate the opportunities provided by the course to develop students’ academic, interpersonal and emotional skills.

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EDEP Registration

Survey Open: March 26 - April 7, 2019

The ACPS Extended Day Enrichment Program (EDEP) offers after-school programs at all elementary schools and serves approximately 1,000 students. Space is limited in EDEP; therefore, the division solicited input from our elementary school families on the registration process for the 2019-20 school year. We received 583 responses with representation from all 15 of our elementary schools from current program participants as well as non-participants. Based on the feedback, we will be focusing on improvements to the timing of registration, the online EDEP registration system, and communications around registration. We also will consider the recommendations we received regarding alternative registration procedures.

View a summary of the survey results »

Bell Schedule

Survey Open: January 22 - February 1, 2019

The Bell Schedule Survey collected opinions from high school students, parents and employees about our current high school schedules, as part of the division's ongoing effort to offer the broadest possible range of learning experiences for students. Survey results provided helpful guidance around whether students should have 7 or 8 academic classes in an 8-period day; the role of the anchor day; and whether to use a fixed, rotational or hybrid schedule.

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View a narrative summary of survey results »

Career Clusters

Survey Open: December 1-7, 2018

The division's middle school students participated in a survey about career interests, based on the Virginia Department of Education’s Career Clusters model. The clusters help students explore their early career interests and identify courses of study that align with those interests. Feedback from this survey will help the division plan courses and programs at our high schools, CATEC, and future student centers and academies.

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Budget Priorities Fall 2018

2019-20 Calendar Development

Speak Up 2018-19

Survey Open: November 1, 2018 - January 31, 2019

Speak Up, a national research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow, provides an easy way for students, parents and educators to share their views on technology and learning with Albemarle County Public Schools. Input informs our decisions about technology, as well as contributes to the national dialogue about educational technology.

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Superintendent Listening Tour

Survey Open: September 19 - October 5, 2018

Following 16 listening tour sessions in which nearly 400 students, parents, employees, and community members shared their insights, Superintendent Matt Haas launched a survey to make sure that his understanding of the school division's needs and how well those needs are being met aligned with the feedback he received through his listening tour. He also was interested to see if that feedback accurately represented the beliefs of the school community as a whole. Survey feedback is intended to help Dr. Haas prioritize his work as the newest superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools.

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Driver Education

Grading Practices

Survey Open: March 20 - June 8, 2018

One of the four guiding principles of the High School 2022 theoretical framework is to ensure the use of fair, meaningful and equitable grading practices. To confirm that this guiding principle is in place in our schools, division leaders undertook a study of grading practices during the 2017-18 school year. This work included a survey of all teachers in grades 4-12 on their grading practices and beliefs. The results of this survey provided details on the current state of our grading practices, and in 2018-19, staff will use this data to help determine next steps as our division seeks to improve student learning through the use of fair and equitable grading practices.

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Weighted Grades

Survey Open: January 17 - February 12, 2018

Following a change to our homework policy and a program evaluation of our Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment classes, we conducted the Weighted Grades survey as part of an effort to improve the health and welfare of our students and to facilitate students' choice of classes based on their personal interest and career aspirations.

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View survey results segmented by participation group:

Budget Priorities - Fall 2017

Survey Open: November 17 - December 17, 2017

The 2018-19 Budget Survey was designed to help the school division understand how well we have communicated the annual budget process to our community and to determine the degree to which our community members support various system initiatives. The input that we collected was used to inform the 2018-19 budget development process, including both the Superintendent's and School Board's funding requests.

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2018-19 Calendar

Speak Up 2017-18

Survey Open: October 16, 2017 - January 19, 2018

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Child Nutrition

Collective Efficacy

Survey Open: September - December 2017

Collective efficacy (the shared perceptions of teachers in a school that the efforts of the faculty as a whole will have positive effects on students) is a focus for our work across the school division. In the fall of 2017, 1,344 Albemarle educators (99.6% of ACPS teachers) participated in the Collective Efficacy survey, which was reproduced from Jenni Donohoo’s book, Collective Efficacy: How Educators′ Beliefs Impact Student Learning (2016). The survey asked teachers to indicate their level of agreement with 18 statements representing six characteristics of Collective Efficacy, including Advanced Teacher Influence; Goal Consensus; Teachers’ Knowledge About One Another’s Work; Cohesive Staff; Responsiveness of Leadership; and Effective Systems of Intervention.

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Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment

Survey Open: June 23-30, 2017

As part of a comprehensive evaluation of the high school experience, the school division invited parents of high school students to provide input regarding their child's experience with Advanced Placement (AP) and/or Dual Enrollment (DE) classes, including their child's motivation for taking AP or DE classes, the value of the coursework, and the variety of available courses.

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Homework

Survey Open: April 20 - May 4, 2017

As part of a comprehensive review of our homework policy, a committee of administrators, teachers, and counselors engaged in research and study, met with several internal and external advisory groups, and evaluated survey feedback provided in 2015 by more than 2,100 parents and students and 275 teachers. The committee then drafted new homework guidelines with a focus on the purpose, quality and quantity of the work assigned, and with an emphasis on student health. In May 2016, the school board approved amendments to Policy IKB, our homework policy, with the expectation that teachers would incorporate the changes in the 2016-17 school year. This most recent homework survey was conducted in order to evaluate implementation of the new policy.

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Division-Level Surveys

(in alphabetical order by school year)