speak up state participation guide

© Project Tomorrow 2013

Speak Up 2013A step by step

participation guide for schools and districts

Enable, engage and empower the voices of your stakeholders


Participation Guide for Speak Up 2013

1. What is Speak Up?

2. Why should we participate in Speak Up this year?

3. What benefits will we receive?

4. How do we participate?

5. What should be our goal for participation?

6. Who do we call if we need help?



1. What is Speak Up? Speak Up is a national research project conducted

through online surveys and focus groups.

Speak Up has three goals: To collect and report on the authentic, unfiltered views and ideas of K-12 students, educators and parents so as to inform national discussions on the use of technology in education

To provide school, district and state leaders with similar local or regional data from stakeholders to inform their policies, programs and funding

To demonstrate to the education stakeholders, most notably students, that their voices are important in discussions about education.




Speak Up is facilitated exclusively through schools and districts. Schools and districts register to participate to ensure data confidentiality. All schools and districts are eligible to participate.

Speak Up is an initiative of Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit group that used to be known as NetDay. It is Project Tomorrow’s mission to provide Speak Up as a service to schools and districts.

Speak Up is not like any other survey process or research project because every participating school and district gets back all of the locally collected data from all stakeholders.

There is no fee to take the online surveys or to get back the local data. There is no limit on the number of surveys that can be submitted.




Project Tomorrow presents the national data each spring with Congress, the US Department of Education, other federal agencies, thinktanks and research organizations and education associations.

Project Tomorrow is not in the “gotcha business.” We do not compare schools or districts, nor do we share local data with anyone but the participating schools and districts.

Speak Up includes online surveys this year for students (grade appropriate surveys for students K-12), parents, teachers, school site administrators, librarian media specialists, district office administrators, and NEW this year community members and business partners.

The surveys take about 15-20 minutes to complete and all data is 100% confidential.


Empowering authentic voices – since 2003: 2.5 million K-12 students 218,500 teachers and librarians 168,000 parents 20,000 school and district leaders 30,000 K-12 schools – from all 50 states, DC,

American military base schools, Canada, Mexico, Australia, int’l schools . . .

3 million respondents


1. What is Speak Up? By the numbers …..




Three big reasons

This year’s question themes

What other education leaders say about the value of Speak Up

Open period for online surveys




Three Big Reasons: Access the ideas of your stakeholders – especially students and

parents whose views are often difficult to collect. Speak Up is the unbiased, 3rd party guardian of these views. Respondents are more candid with us - we are not the district, state, or a vendor.

No need to write your own surveys – we are the experts in how to ask audience-specific questions plus we provide you with the national data for benchmarking anyway. Speak Up is the most cost effective way to engage your community.

Ensure that the voices of your stakeholders are being heard – in Washington DC and your state capitol. Be part of a solution!


Learning & Teaching with Technology Math Instruction / Career Interests in STEM and Teaching Professional Development / Teacher Preparation Internet Safety Administrators’ Challenges / Parents’ Concerns Ed Tech Funding Online Assessments Common Core Standards Emerging Technologies in the Classroom

Mobile Devices & BYOD, Online Learning, Digital Content, E-textbooks, Games, Social Media Tools and Applications

Designing the 21st Century School


This year’s question themes




What other education leaders say about the value of Speak Up

We have a better understanding of what’s important to our stakeholders (71%)

We now have a mechanism to empower students to voice their opinions about school (70%)

Our technology initiatives are more closely aligned to students’ expectations and needs (68%)

The data provides meaningful input into our district planning process (66%)

Our teacher PD is more closely aligned to the expectations and needs of our teachers (54%)

We have created or revised our technology plan based upon the data (51%)

© Project Tomorrow 2013© Project Tomorrow 2010


The South Carolina Virtual School Program looks forward to reviewing our SpeakUp survey responses every year, because it allows us to put a finger on the pulse of our students’ learning experiences. We are able to identify ways to expand and grow our program based on student feedback. The South Carolina Virtual School Program always focuses on the students’ open, written comments in the Speak-Up surveys, because this present students with the opportunity to openly express their thoughts, opinions, and suggestions about how we can adjust our program and adapt it to stay at the cutting edge in the growing field of online education."--Vicki Williams, South Carolina Virtual School Program, South Carolina

"The data collected through the Speak Up survey[s] was shared with key stakeholders in the district including parents, patrons, Board of Education, and the Technology Advisory Committee members. Each group found the data informative and helpful to them in their work.--Kristy Sailors, Director of Educational Technology-Blue Valley School District, Kansas

" …We view participation in Speak Up as an opportunity - especially for students - to play a part in participatory democracy. Having their voices represented is important to them and to us.” --Klein Independent School District, Texas


78% of students would like to be more involved in local education decisions

• Have class discussions

• Give input through Speak Up and other surveys• Share ideas online with other students

• Be part of a club that researches problems & presents ideas

• Be part of a student advisory group for the principal

• Set up a blog and wiki to share ideas

• Make presentations to the school board

*Taken from Speak Up 2010 Data




What is the open period for online surveys?

Online surveys are open:

October 2nd through December 20th

Registration Now open



3. What benefits will we receive?

During the Speak Up process, our school/district will receive a weeklyemail with the up to date participation numbers by school and district.

The Project Tomorrow website includes lesson plans, promotional materials, logos and banners, FAQs and sample surveys we can review in advance.

The Project Tomorrow team has dedicated staff to help schools and districts participate in Speak Up.

Most importantly, every participating school & district gets a free online report with all of their localized data plus the national data for benchmarking purposes – in February 2014. All surveys, all responses including the open-ended narrative responses.


1. Register as the primary contact of your district or school to monitor your organization’s information

2. Pick a password for students to use to access online surveys

3. Promote to parents and staff – we provide materials

4. Provide way for students to take online surveys

5. We provide you with a weekly survey count

6. Schools & districts get access to local survey results + national data for benchmarks in early February

7. Have a voice in state and national policy

Participation Guide for Speak Up 20134. How do we participate in Speak Up this year?



5. What should be our participation goals?

Step 1: Decide the audiences to poll with the Speak Up surveys

Step 2: Decide what schools/classes you want to participate – or ALL

Step 3: Identify your participation goal per school or per district. One common way to do that is to use a percentage of your current student population to identify that goal. Or a percentage of your teaching staff.

Ex: District student population = 10,000 Speak Up Goal of 25% = 2,500 students

Step 4: Determine how you are going to use our Speak Up data in the spring and communicate those usage objectives with your stakeholders to show real value and the import of the survey participation.

Step 5: Promote and encourage participation. Use incentives to engage your schools and stakeholder audiences!



6. Who do we call if we need help?

Your Project Tomorrow team is available to help you anytime. Please call or email us if you have any questions or need ideas to support your participation.

Jenny Hostert – Speak Up Operations Manager949-609-4660 [email protected]

Julie Evans – CEO949-609-4660 [email protected]


Why is Speak Up important?

Why is it that our teachers don’t understand that when they limit our technology use, they are

limiting our future?

12th Grade Female Student – Roseville, MS

This is why you should participate in Speak Up this year!


Thank you for your interest in Speak Up 2013, a national initiative of

Project Tomorrow.

Learn more at www.tomorrow.org/speakup

speak up state participation guide

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