Aaron Feuer of Panorama Education, speaking with a group of curriculum directors at CES last week, provided a range of options and recommendations for districts beginning to survey staff and students.

• Opt-in model: teachers who want to participate may, they can control who they share the data with.  The district administers surveys for use at school and district-wide level, while the classroom-level data are emailed to each teacher, but they don’t have to open it. (Some teachers opt into surveys when they find it to be more positive than observation data.) District leaders can choose to use these data for PD—here’s how our students see us; how do we move forward?
• Start with staff feedback only this year. Benefits: Principals model the feedback process, make it less threatening, prepare the ground, eases tensions, and set the stage for student surveys.
• Most important: trust between teacher and evaluator in looking at student feedback

Do you have another solution for launching student and staff feedback?  Will any of the options described above work for your district?