Listening to Student Voices in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD

This mission is made visible through the dedication of the CFBISD staff to continuously improve academic outcomes for students, but it doesn’t stop with test scores. Non-academic aspects of the student experience, such as school climate, culture, and social-emotional learning, are specifically emphasized. Yet in 2012, the district felt it was missing system-wide data to understand how students were truly experiencing their schools and classrooms.

In 2013, CFBISD partnered with YouthTruth to gather annual feedback from its students in order to learn where targeted improvements could be made to keep the district on track in fulfilling its mission. School and district leaders make it a priority to understand and meet the needs of their diverse community and they have found that a prerequisite to doing that well is to ask students directly what those needs are.

“It’s hard to tell the story of the district without telling the 26,000 stories of every child who walks through our door,” says Georgeanne Warnock, Associate Superintendent of Educational Services. “Each student has their own strengths and challenges, and each of their families has their own triumphs and heartaches. We really try to hear what each child needs.”