The Indian River School District school board is gearing up to release another survey regarding implementation of a school uniform policy.
According to Indian River School Board Member and School Uniform Committee Chairman Dr. Donald Hattier, the school board had such a high response rate to the survey sent out last year, they simply couldn’t tabulate everything by hand. “We sent out about 8,000 surveys and got about 4,500 back,” explained Hattier. “Usually, with surveys, you are lucky to get a 4 or 5 percent response, and we got about 50 percent.”
This next survey will be sent out via the AlertNow Program, through the telephone. According to their Web site, AlertNow Rapid Communication Service sends more than 5 million messages each month on behalf of more than 12,000 school administrators in 49 states throughout the United States. AlertNow enables schools to deliver thousands of voice or text messages to telephones, mobile phones, PDAs or any Internet-enabled device, within minutes.
The program can produce the data that the school needs to efficiently tabulate parental response to the survey, and Hattier said parents can expect the calls to be made in the next month or so. It will concentrate on five or six main questions about the policy, such as if parents believe it would make a difference in discipline and the overall school environment.
Hattier said, for this year, they have strengthened their existing dress code, which includes policies regarding exposed midriffs, bare shoulders and inappropriate footwear.