School District honored for staff engagement

According to the latest Gallup poll, the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District is in the top seven districts in the state for staff engagement.

It’s not a political preference indicator. These results are based on responses from employees themselves.

The district, using a Gallop Q12 survey last fall, has an employee engagement rate of 54%, up from 47%, and dropped its actively disengaged percentage to almost zero.

Cooperative Educational Services Agency No. 6 CEO Ted Neitzke presented the district with a trophy for its achievement at the March 11 School Board meeting.

“That really positions you to be a regional employer. It’s a very different position than many school districts across the state of Wisconsin. There are only six others that have achieved more than 51% in the state,” Neitzke said via video conference.

The national average is 31% for public school teachers and staff, he said.

The poll asks 12 questions addressing workplace satisfaction, expectations, tools to do the job, recognition for good work, feeling the job is important to the company mission, having a best friend at work, talking about progress and opportunities to grow.

“This is a globally normed survey of employee engagement. Gallup’s research supports that highly engaged employees have higher well-being and commitment to the work they do,” Supt. Elizabeth Freeman said.

The district has ranked among the highest-performing in the state, according to the state Department of Public Instruction’s report card that measures achievement, growth, indicators of post-secondary success and how those with the lowest test scores are improving.

Those, however, are student-only metrics. The Gallup Q12 poll addresses the staff.

“The district has a continuous improvement plan that includes a measure of staff engagement because we know there is a connection between having an engaged staff and student outcomes. Included in our results is input from all employee groups — teachers, aides, clerical, custodial, food service, etc.,” Freeman said. “We know it takes a highly functional team to support students, and everyone’s engagement matters.”

“I’m a little jealous living to your south here,” Neitzke, the mayor of Port Washington and a former teacher, principal and superintendent, said.

“Districts that break the 51% staff engagement threshold are on the cusp of everything changing for them. And that’s not happening all around you. Celebrate this.”

Cedar Grove-Belgium, he said, is at a point “where you’re going to start to see other results in better ways.”

In addition, results of a staff survey by School Perceptions done last year were among the best the firm has seen in that cycle.

Seventy-three percent of the staff took that survey. Of the survey’s five categories, the district had a score of 3.82 in academics, putting it in the 76th percentile of districts the firm has surveyed, 3.94 in engagement (72nd), 4.06 in support (74th), 3.91 in student experience (60th) and 4.08 in staff experience (80th).

Freeman said leadership from the top has helped spark the success.

“I attribute our success to the board establishing a clear vision and ambitious goals, principals and directors having strong relationships with our staff, and having employees who really care about and take pride in what they do every day when they show up to work. Not only is Cedar Grove-Belgium a great place for students, we want our employees to feel it is a terrific place to work, too,” she said.

School Board President Jeremy Spriggs praised the district’s administrators.

“We can say a lot of great things, these grandiose ideas, but you guys are the hands that carry all this out and do the hard work of engaging with our staff and getting to the heights that we’ve achieved so far,” he said.

“I turn it right back and say thank you all for what you’re doing every single day.”