Among the 15 Jewish Day Schools that have participated in the Measuring Success Faculty Survey in the last year, Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School and Yavneh Academy are strong examples. (And based off of this success, Measuring Success is now building cohorts among other types of independent schools.)
From the outset, Kushner leadership prioritized the importance of the survey to its faculty members in various meetings and constantly stressed its confidential nature with administration and analysis led by Measuring Success. 122 of its faculty members responded to the survey, representing a 94% response rate—far exceeding the 80% response rate goal. The leadership then worked to understand, interpret, and act on the survey results.
“For us, some of the differences in faculty satisfaction and perspective came out when looking across divisions,” said Rabbi Eliezer Rubin, Head of School. “There was a need to dissect the community throughout the lens of each division since each division is so different.”
Ways in which school leadership has since acted on the survey findings include moving from frontal reporting in faculty meetings to more time spent in working groups and celebrating various levels of school seniority milestones at the end-of-year faculty meeting. These initiatives represent relatively simple, but meaningful and impactful, gestures that only came about because leadership took the time and effort to hear out its faculty members.