The city’s School Building Project survey has been deemed “problematic” by many, including some City Councilors. — Photo by Bobbie Toner

By Jeffrey Shwom

A 5-minute online survey has turned contentious as advocates and city councilors push back against the Somerville School Building Project: Phase One Community Feedback Survey, released the morning of January 23.

By that evening’s City Council Meeting, a late item was placed by Councilors Lance Davis and Kristen Strezo (Resolution ID # 25-0157) asking “that the administration immediately withdraw the School Building Community Feedback Survey, released this morning, regarding the replacement of the Winter Hill and, potentially, Brown School.”

Councilor Strezo stressed, “We believe that the survey the city just put out is problematic. It was put forward ignoring the will of the community, and of the specific construction committee assembled to help create the process, the Construction Advisory Committee (CAG).” Councilor Strezo is the City Council Liaison to the CAG.

Ryan Williams, President of the Somerville Council of PTAs and the Brown School PTA, stated, “We have a serious job ahead of us that will affect the city’s schools for decades. It’s not clear to me whether the point of the committee is to build consensus or to manufacture consent.”

City Spokesperson Denise Taylor responded that, “The survey content was the subject of discussion at two CAG meetings before the final questions were developed. Over the course of those meetings, city staff and consultants received significant and valuable feedback – most of which was either incorporated into this survey (both in the questions and demographic categories) or will be incorporated into the Phase 2 survey planned for later in the process. This first survey is designed for gathering general preferences. The Phase 2 survey will put specific choices before the community.” Furthermore, “the survey was developed collaboratively by a range of City and Somerville Public Schools staff with consultant support (The Consensus Building Institute),” and with CAG member responses and user-testing.

Ryan Williams pointed to major objections “relate(d) to poor survey design, lack of review, and a strong indication of bias.” He says that during the process he “specifically pointed them to best practices from the Harvard Program on Survey Design.” Problems with the survey include unbalanced responses, a lack of neutral language, and that “both the tone and the narrow context provided in the question directly influences the answer.”

Elsewhere, social media conversations that include Winter Hill Community Innovation School parents and members of Somerville’s Council of PTAs indicate confusion and frustration with the survey. One comment asked, “Anyone can take this survey even if they do not have kids and maybe don’t even live in Somerville?” Another felt that, “they’re all written to elicit a certain response.”

The Somerville Times confirmed that there is not a clear spot where all respondents can indicate that they are public school staff that do not live in Somerville. Spokesperson Taylor indicated this was fair criticism. “Generally, staff are identifying in the ‘How do you describe yourself’ question in the demographic section, but we should have included a specific question asking how the respondents are affiliated with Somerville. While noting that staff too can be residents and parents, we will consider ways to address this including correcting for that in the Phase II survey.” Any resident of Somerville or a member of the Somerville Public Schools community can complete this survey.

The city also talked about methodology and best practices, and says it is rare historically that folks “game” the survey. “Analysts from SomerStat use a range of techniques to ensure we are gathering high-quality and legitimate data. We don’t exclude potential participants based on location or IP address because we want to make sure we are accommodating for both multimember households and legitimate survey responders who may reside out of state,” like school staff and families of unhoused students temporarily residing outside Somerville. “Instead, there are numerous methods on the backend to review responses for potential efforts to misuse the survey.”

Councilor Strezo said, “Whatever happens with the school, our Somerville community deserves to gather authentic options on what Somerville parents, students and guardians want, for they will inherit whatever buildings come forward.”

As previously reported in The Times, the city is in the process of school planning for one or more Pre-K through 8th grade public schools, to firstly meet the needs of the Winter Hill Community Innovation School, and possibly the Benjamin G. Brown School. The city estimates this to be a seven-year process.