Feedback Fail? 

By: Janelle Hess

Every year the students from the High School, Junior High, and Elementary School take the Student Voice Survey allowing feedback to the district. This year it led to an hour of frustration for many students.

Each year it has been known to be dreadful; it has become just another form that students do that has ultimately done nothing to better our school and provide honest and truthful results.

After talking with a number of students, the same responses occurred across the board.

Homer Senior, Lavinia Caravella, said: "I think it was a bit difficult because it kept crashing."

She was not alone with tech issues. Abigail Coolidge stated: "It got frustrating when you were almost done, and it kicked you out of taking the survey.”

Not only were people saying this was hard to start and even finish, but the reliability of this survey could have been higher to really change the things that needed to be changed.

A freshman said: "Some people may have thought that they could get in trouble, and it may not have been anonymous.”

A common response from people when asked, Do you think people were being truthful about their answers?

Caravella responded: "I think there are people who will answer truthfully and those who do not, and obviously, there are going to be those sections that are the most important, and people will not tell the truth, but that is always going to be the case."

When asking around and talking to these students and seeing if they had any thoughts on how to prevent this from being just another dreadful form to fill out and seeing if they had suggestions on how to do this in the future, Alazae Coggins said: "I think it should be done on paper to prevent the crashing."

She was not the only one who felt that way and had a different idea about approaching this survey. Catelyn Ensign said: "To prevent the crashing from going on, they could have us take it during a specific class, for example, in English or Social Studies."

After hearing people's opinions, although they were similar, they all were valid points. We should find an alternative way to improve our school culture and work together to ensure that the Homer Central School District students receive the quality education, support, and healthy school culture we all deserve.