WEEKLY REPORT #1

About the Survey

Students in each of the schools of Rose Tree Media School District were administered online surveys designed by www.YouthTruthSurvey.org to multiple groups in the District: Students (Elementary, Middle, and High School), faculty/staff, and caregivers (parents).
The surveys captured the opinions of these different groups about how the District was doing. This week, we will look at a couple questions from the STUDENT survey for PENNSCREST HIGH SCHOOL.
The purpose of these surveys is to get a snapshot of opinion from a broad audience; contrast the RTMSD survey results with those from other SUBURBAN school districts; and use the findings to make improvements to RTMSD.
Read RTMSD’s stated purpose for at Youth Truth Survey 2022-2023.
The survey is pretty lengthy: 172 questions asked of Penncrest High School. The “Youth Truth” (YT) report, analyzes the responses is even longer (211 pages). The report is pretty complex. Weekly Report #1 will look at just a few responses which seem to be the most important for District parents and taxpayers.
- You may download for yourself the Penncrest High School Student Survey Results report from the RTMSD website.
- For an explanation of the YT survey analyses, click HERE.
- Scroll down for a short list of take-aways from the Penncrest High School students’ responses.

The trends from the 1st survey to this years’ are the most revealing data points – what changed to cause it?
Like the survey’s response rate drop: 89% responded in 2021-22, but only 77% this year Why?
It is the averaged response which matters most – a Percentile comparison to other schools does not change whether our students said they were satisfied or not,
only that others were, relative to other schools, more or less satisfied than our students.

PHS students’ ranked the District poorly. Compared to other Suburban schools, their responses placed PHS in the 17th percentile! This means that 83% of the schools surveyed were graded higher for Academic challenge by their students.
In response to “In order to receive a good grade, I have to work hard in my classes”, students were just under “Neither agree nor disagree” last year (which was Typical of all schools). This year’s student responses dropped closer to Disagree and placed PHS in 13th percentile of the Suburban schools surveyed by YT, and fewer students responded “Agree” or higher.
- 1 = Strongly Disagree
- 2 = Disagree
- 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree
- 4 = Agree
- 5 = Strongly Agree
For “The work that I do for my classes makes me think”, the average response 3.32 – even lower than “…have to work hard”
Very disturbingly, the lowest response is for “Most of my teachers want us to use our thinking skills, not just memorize things” was 3.19!
Note: A very disappointing realization is that the longer students have attended PHS, the lower their responses rank the school among its peers. The Seniors’ responses were lowest of all PHS scores.

The survey responses regarding College & Career Readiness are also very disturbing:
PHS students’ responses are, again, much more negative than other schools’ – PHS is in the 19th percentile, but there are more positive responses (“Agree” or “Strongly Agree”) than last year (was only 14%, now 25%)
In response to “My school has helped me understand the steps I need to take in order to have the career that I want”, students’ responses decrease with each school year, with the Senior class averaging 2.5, near “Disagree” on the 5 point scale.
For “My school has helped me understand the steps I need to take in order to apply to college”, the average response does not change as one progresses from 9th grade to 12th, remaining a class average response of 2.94
For these two most critical themes, none of the individual questions in either theme approach an average response where the students “Agree” that they are challenged or prepared for college & career.
Across all 7 themes where PHS students’ responses were compared to those of other YT-surveyed schools.
PHS achieved no better than 58th percentile (Belonging & Peer Collaboration).
In the other 6 themes, the best comparison relative to the other schools was 38% (Relationships).