The Palo Alto High School administration is going to decide the future of the bell schedule for next year based on the feedback from focus groups, which are currently discussing the bell schedule survey students, teachers and parents took several weeks ago.
The purpose of the groups is to allow members of the Paly community to offer their input on the current schedule and the survey results, according to Principal Phil Winston.
“The purpose of the focus groups was to gather more information in a different format from the online survey,” Winston said. “The hope was that through the discussion that other perspectives might be made apparent.”
The groups comprised of students, staff and parents first met Thursday, Jan. 27, according to Assistant Principal Kathie Laurence, and the last group is going to meet Feb. 15. No results have been produced from the discussions yet, Laurence said, as the data has yet to be organized and examined.
“We have meeting notes but [they] have not been compiled yet,” Laurence said.
Winston added that the outcomes of the focus groups are important, as they will help determine how Paly’s routine schedule will look next year.
“The results will used to decide if we will continue with the pilot bell schedule,” Winston said. “They will also be used to make refinements to the schedule if it is decided to continue with it.”
Professional facilitators Judy Logan and Jackie Schmidt Posner led the discussions, according to Winston.
“Both women have experience running focus groups for a variety of organizations,” Winston said.
Of the eight groups participating, three are comprised of students, three of parents and two of staff, according to Laurence.
“We have three parent, three student and three staff focus groups of about 10 people [each],” Laurence said.
Winston said the students were chosen arbitrarily, the staff members volunteered themselves and the PTSA offered parents the opportunity to participate.
“The students were selected at random and then placed in groups according to their grade level,” Winston said. “The students were divided into three groups: a ninth/10th grade group, a 10th/11th grade group, [and] an 11th/12th grade group. We asked each department for two volunteers to participate on the staff focus groups. They were divided between the two staff focus groups. All departments were represented including Living Skills, the Library and classified staff. The parents were solicited by PTSA to participate in one of the three meetings.”
Even though they have not been fully processed, the survey and focus group results will be available to the Paly community in the weeks following the last focus group meeting, according to Laurence.
“They [results] will be released to the Paly community, but we have to wait until everything is done before we start releasing these results,” Laurence said.