Our students deserve the best educational experience we can offer them, and to reach this goal, we need to listen to the ideas, knowledge, and thoughts from different people. It is important that we engage everyone -- from students and staff to families and community members to ensure different perspectives and experiences are woven into the Ignite strategic plan process. Asking participants to share their thoughts and rate the thoughts of others is one of the ways we are engaging different voices.

No, it is not mandatory. Students from grades 4 to 12 will be invited to participate in the survey. We want them to have input into our planning for the next five years. As current students, they understand the student experience as it is today, and have ideas about what it could be in the future.

Parental consent is not required, however, completing the survey is voluntary. We will be giving families notice in advance of the survey. Families can choose to opt their child out if they wish.

Questions are organized into three groupings: students, parents/families, staff & community. We ask that participant choose the group that they feel best describes their connection to the DSBN.
There are two questions, collected with two distinct surveys. Once you have given your thoughts to the first question, you are asked to give your input to the second question.

1. What has helped you grow most as a learner and as an individual at your school?
2. Thinking towards the future, what can the DSBN do that will have the greatest impact on your success and well-being?

1. What has supported your child most as both a learner and an individual at their school?
2. Thinking towards the future, what can the DSBN do that will have the greatest impact on the success and well-being of your child?

1. What do you appreciate the most about the DSBN?
2. Thinking towards the future, what can the DSBN do that will have the greatest impact on the success and well-being of students?

The survey will launch on September 14 and close on September 28 at 11:59 pm

The survey uses Google translate to provide you with all the information you need with a choice of 108 different languages. If you’d like to participate in another language other than English there are instructions for how to do this within the survey.
If you have additional questions about translation, please contact us: strategicplan@dsbn.org.

Yes. We will provide your child with the accommodations, supports, and assistive technology necessary to ensure they can participate.

Please reach out to your school principal who can help provide access to the technology to complete the survey.

Yes, it is anonymous and will not ask for your name, age, or other private information. You will be asked to choose a group of questions that best describes your connection to the DSBN.

We are working with an organization called Thought Exchange. They are a reputable, established company that focuses solely on projects like our strategic plan process.

Thought Exchange the name for the tool used to gather input from people that are meaningful and productive.

You’ll be asked to answer two open-ended questions where you can provide as many responses as you like.

• SHARE – You will be asked to share your thoughts in response to the questions
• STAR – you will see other’s thoughts and be able to rank them (from 1-5) depending on how strongly you agree or disagree with their idea
• DISCOVER – where everyone’s thoughts are sorted by the average star rating.

Your responses will be shared with others participating in the survey. No one sees who submitted thoughts or who assigned ratings.

You can share as many thoughts as you would like – there is no limit. We recommend organizing and separating your thoughts so that each thought is about a specific idea. By approaching it this way, others will more easily be able to decide how many stars to assign that thought.

Yes, if they are related to the questions, you have been asked.

Once you’ve shared your thoughts, you can see the thoughts of others and add stars to the ones that you feel are most important. This helps to highlight the topics that are most important to participants.

For each thought you review, you can assign between one and five stars. You can assign stars to as many thoughts as you like. Thoughts will appear one-by-one and the Thought Exchange algorithm ensures that each thought can be rated.

You will be seeing the thoughts of other individuals participating in this survey. You will not know who they are or see any information about them.

Most of the thoughts you shared will be in your selection of thoughts in the STAR step. However, if you added a lot of thoughts, you might not see all of them.

To keep the STAR phase manageable, you will see a random selection of thoughts in addition to some of your own. Thought Exchange uses an algorithm to ensure that each thought is seen with the same frequency as every other thought, so each voice has an equal chance of being heard.

Thought Exchange removes any thoughts that are rude or hurtful to a person or a group of people, violates the Human Rights code, contains identifying information, or does not answer the question.
If you happen to see a thought that you feel is rude or hurtful, please flag the thought for review. Click the Options Icon shown by three dots. Then click on “Report”. The flagged thought will be reviewed by a person and removed immediately if appropriate.

As often as you want – in fact, the more the better! By revisiting the exchange, you will get to see and rate new thoughts that are being shared. Those thoughts might even spark new thoughts for you to add.

Thought Exchange uses Google translate to provide you with all the thoughts and the questions in your language of choice. If you’d like to participate in another language other than English, you can do so by clicking ‘Change language’ from the drop-down menu on the Introduction page for your exchange. You can participate in any Google Translate supported language.

You may receive multiple invitations if you belong to more than one group: parents/guardians, staff, and/or community partner. You may respond separately to each invitation to express your thoughts as a member of that group.

No, your responses are anonymous. Your thoughts will be shared, exactly as you submit them, with other participants during the STAR step.

The DSBN is committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with our legislated duty under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. If you have questions about privacy, please contact DSBN Freedom of Information/Privacy Co-ordinator, 191 Carlton Street, St. Catharines, ON, L2R 7P4 at 905-641-1550.

Responses are filtered by an algorithm that ensures each thought is reviewed by the same number of people. This ensures equal access to all thoughts.
All responses will be reviewed, and thoughts will be removed if they are rude or hurtful to a person or a group of people, if they identify a child, if they identify an individual negatively, and/or if they do not answer the question.

The Thought Exchange platform may present an option at the end of the survey process for participants to provide their name. This is an optional step and is offered so that Thought Exchange can provide a “friendlier” greeting to participants whenever they log in to their process. Whether or not you choose to enter your name, responses are never publicly tied to specific email addresses or names.

No, emails collected during the consultation process will only be used to facilitate this Thought Exchange for the Ignite Survey. They will not be shared or sold to another third-party.