Parents, guardians and students were recently sent a survey link with questions relating to a range of issues.

Student safety, positive student relationships, school rules and how they are enforced are among the included topics addressed by questions in the survey.

The Conditions for Learning Survey is required by the Iowa Department of Education to be administered by Iowa public schools annually since the signing of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act. The survey was designed to help improve student engagement, safety and learning environments in Iowa schools.

While the survey is voluntary for parents, guardians and students, Marshalltown Community School District highly encourages participation. The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete and the link to access the survey was directly emailed to parents and guardians at the email address they use to access InfiniteCampus. The results of the survey count toward each school’s performance profiles, which includes a school’s state assessment scores among other accountability measures. School districts also have the opportunity to use data from the survey for their own purposes.

Marshalltown Community School District Director of Communications Adam Sodders said the results of survey and other information in the school performance profiles help determine how the district uses their resources and staff, identifying areas of strength and areas to be improved.

“This data is really important for us to collect,” Sodders said. “Not just because it’s a requirement, but also because we understand the importance of hearing from parents and students consistently and frequently, making sure they have opportunities to share their input so we can consistently improve.”

Students in second grade and below do not take the survey, while students in third grade through fifth grade take a different version of the survey than sixth grade through 12th grade students take for age appropriateness. All parents and guardians, regardless of what grades their student is in.

Survey results are completely anonymous, meaning pieces of personally identifying information are not collected.

Both the parent and student survey are due May 28.

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Contact Trevor Babcock at 641-753-6611 or tbabcock@timesrepublican.com.