What School Attributes Increase Student Propensity to Recommend Their School to Peers?

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Having conducted hundreds of interviews with parents of high school students as well as scores of focus groups with students it is clear that students are playing a major role in selecting their high school. It is further clear that they rely heavily on word of mouth recommendations from older students to shape their preferences. 

This raises an important question: How can high school administrators increase the odds that their students will want to recommend their school?

Research on Drivers of Student Advocacy

Benchmarking for Good research with over 1400 high school students conducted over the past 4 months. Statistical analysis of survey results indicate that strong student ratings on the following 5 factors correlated most strongly with the propensity of students to strongly recommend their schools to friends:

• Offering a Positive and Nurturing Environment for Students

• Providing a Strong Social Community for Students to Belong To

• Proactively Communicating About Students’ Situation and Priorities

• Offering Strong Guidance Programs to Recommend Appropriate High Schools, Yeshivot/Seminaries,  or Colleges

• Teachers Paying Attention to Students’ Individual Learning Needs.

Implications for High School Administrators

1. It is vitally important for administrators to conduct student research to learn how their school’s performance is perceived on these key factors.

2. If scores in a particular attribute are lower than desired, administrators should acknowledge the results and declare an intention to strengthen school performance in the area in question.

3. As a next step, administrators should convene focus groups with groups of trusted students to gain an understanding of what changes might strengthen their schools’ performance and fit school cultural norms.

4. Plans to implement changes should be announced and short pulse surveys utilized to ensure the changes are perceived and achieving the desired results.

5. School leaders should announce and celebrate wins and thereby engender in students the perception that their views are respected. This will pave the way for continuous improvement fueled by research. 

School leaders interested in gaining access to helpful action research in this key arena should contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org to explore the potential for their participation in future Benchmarking for Good grant programs.

#Jewish day schools #High Schools #Student Ambassadors #School Marketing

Imperative: Strengthening the Supervision Skills of Faculty Administrators

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Benchmarking for Good has been researching the state of faculty climate for the past year. Our research contributers include 23 Jewish day schools with nearly 1200 faculty members. 

A key topic our research explored is the extent to which faculty members believe the supervision they receive enhances their professional skills. The data suggest there is ample room for improvement. In fact, only 43% of faculty are very satisfied that the feedback provided by their work superior makes them grow professionally. Nearly 30% are either unsatisfied or aren’t sure one way or the other.

Drilling down among the schools in our sample and using the Net Promoter Score metric, which nets out the scores of faculty members who are unsatisfied from those who are very satisfied, we learn that there are significant differences in performance on this measure among day schools.

Question to Readers: where does your school's performance fit on this chart on this issue?

What this Information Means for the Field

Schools in the top ⅓ of performers include Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston, New Jersey and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Hartford. These schools recognize that it is vital to take steps to ensure supervisors have the skills to instill a growth mindset among their faculty members. These school leaders recognize the fact that it is unwise to assume that assuming that experienced faculty members will automatically become capable supervisors is a "bridge too far." They recognize that training supervisors on how to supervise effectively is the most powerful type of professional development a school can invest in. 

To Learn More

To learn more about how to evaluate the effectiveness of your school’s supervision, I invite you to contact me at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org. We can also have a discussion about how your school can take advantage of Benchmarking for Good’s school research grant programs to enhance school effectiveness and climate. 

4 Steps that Will Make Your School a Magnet for Teachers in 2025

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good

It is a new year and the right year for taking the steps to make your school a magnet for the best faculty out there. In support of this, Benchmarking for Good’s faculty climate research among more than 1,100 educators working in 23 diverse Jewish day schools with over 8,000 students provides statistically significant guidance for school leaders striving to retain valued faculty and recruit talented staff additions.

We analyzed the factors that correlated with schools scoring the highest on the question: “How likely would you be to recommend working at your school to a friend or family member?” The winning schools exceled at the following factors:

1.       Faculty feeling alignment with their school’s Mission. Schools whose faculty felt strongly aligned with their Missions are significantly more likely to be advocates to potential new hires. While no school offers the perfect working environment and conditions, it turns out that feeling Mission aligned really helps compensate for any shortcomings that might exist in other areas and turns employees into advocates.

2.       Faculty members’ perception that their supervisors have realistic expectations about workload. Schools whose faculty felt they had clear workload expectations and whose supervisors exhibited empathy about workload limits were significantly stronger advocates for working at their school.

3.       Satisfaction with the work environment (collegiality, supervision, support, space, etc.) Perceiving their work environment to be a congenial one in terms of interpersonal and supervisory relationships, available support, and space was the third most important correlating factor relative to being an employer of choice.

4.       Satisfaction that they were being provided with the tools needed to perform their work (e.g., in terms of curriculum, technology, etc.) Related to the previous point, faculty members who perceived their school leadership as going the extra mile to ensure they have the tools to effectively do their job are significantly more likely to advocate employment at their schools than faculty who feel unsupported in this regard. 

Acting on These Findings

1. ·         Regularly conduct faculty climate research to learn how your faculty believes you perform on these four factors. Benchmarking for Good would be happy to discuss partnering with you via our grant programs on such research.  

2. ·         Where the research indicates you are falling short, speak-- via focus groups on one on one interviews --with trusted staff members to learn how they assess your school’s performance and what they believe it would take to improve it.  

3. ·         Assess what you have learned and decide on your appropriate action.

4. ·         Create an implementation plan and communicate about it to the faculty so they understand and will support your plan.

5. ·         Finally, monitor the impact of your plan via short, tactical surveys ("How are we doing?). As appropriate, celebrate the wins with your faculty, and, where necessary, learn from shortfalls, and take corrective action.

   
   

You can be confident that you are on a journey of building increased trust with your faculty and learning how to steadily improve on the journey to being an employer of choice in your market.

For support understanding and learning how to strengthen your school’s faculty climate please contact Dr. Harry Bloom, at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org