Marblehead asking its parents to rate schools

MARBLEHEAD-The School Committee has some questions for school parents.Each year, in late winter or early spring, the Site-Based Management Teams at each school send out parent questionnaires as a way to develop the school?s improvement plan.The 2008 questionnaires will contain two questions submitted by the committee.Committee members want to know if they are keeping parents informed about what?s going on in the schools.One of the committee?s key goals is improved communication between families and the schools, in an era when notices sent home with students don?t always reach parents in a timely way.They want to know if parents have been told all they need to know about the superintendent?s instructional focus plan for the schools.They also want to know where parents are getting their information. The list includes the district Web site, www.marblehead.com, a school Web site, teachers, the school principal, school presentations and School Committee meetings.Information sources were lumped together as a single question when Committee Chairman Amy Drinker said the principals were added to the list at the request of three Site-Based Management Team chairs, as a likely source of school information.Drinker submitted a first draft of the questions Nov. 28 and, at the suggestion of committee member Jonathan Lederman, they were broken down into a series of questions.However, Lederman?s proposal last week to ask about email communication with teachers and principals was rejected by the committee on a 4-1 vote. The questions as proposed were approved unanimously.