As educational leaders, we collect feedback from a wide range of stakeholders – district leadership, building staff, parents, community members and more. Sometimes we request this feedback and sometimes it’s offered unsolicited! But how often do we collect the most critical feedback – feedback from our students?
Now in my tenth year as a building administrator, I’ve come to view student feedback as one of the most essential tools for leading a school effectively. I’ve learned that gathering feedback from students should occur in various formats to capture a well-rounded perspective on their experiences.
Formal Feedback
Most districts have a system for collecting formal feedback from students. Formal feedback typically targets large groups, such as a grade level or even the entire student body, and involves carefully crafted questions. Most questions include multiple-choice answers that allow for easy quantification, making it simple to present results in charts or graphs.
In recent years, my school district has used the MI Student Voice perception survey, developed by a consortium of superintendents from Kent County, Michigan, to provide a holistic view of students’ experiences. In 2024, 108 districts across Michigan administered this survey. Here are a few key features, as highlighted on the MI Student Voice website:
- Free to participate
- Customizable for your district
- Takes less than 10 minutes to complete
The survey includes questions on social-emotional learning, student engagement, and belonging. Since the survey is customizable, our district worked with its creators to add questions specific to our needs. These included questions on academic feedback and an intervention and enrichment program newly introduced to our district.
If your district is looking for a reliable method for gathering formal feedback, I highly recommend considering the MI Student Voice perception survey.
Informal Feedback
In addition to formal methods, school leaders benefit from collecting feedback through informal channels. This can take many forms; impromptu conversations with kids in the hallway, joining a lunch table, conducting student shadow days, or holding focus groups. These informal interactions allow us to hear students’ insights in real time.
Our school uses both formal surveys and focus groups to capture student voices. Prior to administering the MI Student Voice survey, we held a focus group to preview the survey questions and get feedback from students. Their input was invaluable; they suggested changes, rewrites, and even removal of some questions, allowing us to refine the survey to better reflect their perspectives.
After the survey, we reconvened the focus group to analyze the results together. Drawing on insights from the survey, the group helped provide context, break down student responses, and plan how we might address the feedback and implement meaningful changes. Through these informal methods, we gain a clearer, more nuanced understanding of what our students are telling us about their school experiences.
Here is what we know: our students will tell us how we are doing – all we need to do is ask!