Students’ wellbeing and academic fulfillment are the heartbeat of any educational institution. This truth, although widely agreed upon, can be side-swept and forgotten about in the midst of busy schedules and school politics. Similarly, student feedback gets lost in the shuffle, allowing overlooked problems to snowball into larger issues until administrators need to intervene.
To create a truly responsive and supportive educational environment, administrators must do more than simply react when problems arise — they must take a proactive approach in the welfare of their students. Admin need to not only be receptive to student feedback but also actively seek out student concern, make actionable plans to address these issues, and be transparent with the student body throughout this entire process.
To be fair, it is impossible to implement every single piece of student feedback. This strategy is admittedly a slippery slope that, if completely up to the student, might eventually lead to extremely counterintuitive measures like the complete eradication of homework or three-hour lunch breaks. However, addressing student concerns doesn’t mean catering to every demand without consideration. Administrators — who have students’ best interests at heart — are there precisely to make good decisions and often difficult trade-offs to promote general safety, happiness, and productive learning.
Often, though, this position of power can cause a disconnect with the very body of students admin are vowed to serve. Typically, the resolution of issues follows a predictable pattern: A contentious topic is introduced to campus, students and parents begin to panic, and if the issue becomes significant enough, the admin attempts to alleviate stress by issuing a statement or doing outreach.
A recent instance of this process, a statement addressing Governor Gavin Newsom’s Phone-Free Schools Act letter, only acted as a band-aid solution to deeper concerns that would have benefitted from previous discussion. Even though this approach isn’t inherently bad or stifling to student voices, it is more reactive than proactive.
Often, administrators wait for incidents to occur, and then, almost like damage control, seek out student and community feedback. This reaction, however genuine the intention, is at risk of being perceived as performative and apathetic by the student population.
Instead of letting issues fly under the radar until they become a full-blown crisis, administrators should be more proactive in their approach. Although reactionary measures can help calm a situation in the short term, intense and stressful circumstances may result in haphazard decisions that do not address the root cause of the issue.
A more effective process would begin with recognizing potential problems before they escalate. Taking preventative measures requires the admin to empathize with students and understand their needs through observation and careful consideration of various perspectives.
Not only would this method help create long-term solutions that foster a more positive environment, but it would also demonstrate to students that their voices are heard and their opinions are valued.
Although there is a clear effort made by admin to always make people feel heard and included in the face of rising concern — exemplified in their recent efforts to promote wellness resources, gain student input on the SELF curriculum, and do more outreach to make admin more personable to students — creating solutions should not be a one-off event but instead adapted to changing community opinions.
For example, according to a PAUSD Panorama survey conducted in the fall of 2023-24, 77% of students responded favorably to the topic of Diversity and Inclusion, and 61% of students responded favorably to Teacher-Student Relationships. Even though these data points are considered 60-70th percentile and 80-99th percentile respectively compared to other schools in CORE districts, there is still clearly a margin of improvement: A 77% margin of agreement also means there are 23% of students who do not feel like the topic of Diversity and Inclusion is properly addressed.
In this scenario, a bottle half-empty mentality is necessary to be a catalyst for constant improvement and acknowledgment of student well-being. Establishing an ongoing process that continues to listen to and address concerns is more effective than temporary solutions made to suppress community pushback.
Even with this shift in approach, only listening and collecting feedback isn’t enough; administrators must take concrete actions to resolve challenges the school community faces. Although surveys, such as the Panorama survey, are used to collect student opinions on aspects of the school community and learning environment, students are mostly unaware of what their responses are being used for — if at all.
If there is a lack of communication between admin and students regarding the purpose and use of collected data, students may assume that their feedback is not valued and stop providing constructive responses. Administrators should give themselves credit for the work they put in for students, and the easiest way to do that is to let students know of their internal improvements and projects.
Transparency in decision-making processes can make the student body feel more appreciative of their efforts and may encourage smoother communication in the future.
To gain a mutual understanding of how feedback is incorporated into the school environment, the administrators should increase transparency of their efforts to the student body. It is imperative that students are aware of changes made in response to their concerns to build trust and for the administration to gain recognition of the progress they’ve made.
Especially when establishing policies that directly impact students, administrators should make an effort to keep them informed about their decisions and the rationale behind them. For instance, students have recently expressed frustration with the school-wide implementation of the Evidence-Based Grading system.
Without knowledge of the administration’s motivations and goals in this transition, students are left to speculate, which can lead to confusion and resistance. Being aware of the work done behind the scenes can build a connection between the students and administration and increase the likelihood of future engagement and cooperation.
The administration’s role on campus is largely to create a more positive environment for students to learn. Therefore, it is essential that they actively respond and adapt to the student body’s concerns before they escalate.
