Project Tomorrow

Administrator’s Frequently Asked Questions

About Speak Up

Getting Started

Speak Up Data Results

Technical Support:

About Speak Up

  • What is Speak Up?
    The Speak Up National Research Project provides participating schools, districts and non-profit organizations with a suite to online surveys and reports to collect authentic feedback from your students, educators and parents on important education issues. The survey results are available to you online, free of charge at the end of the survey period. In addition, we summarize and share the national findings with education and policy leaders in Washington DC and your state capitol.

    The top three reasons schools and districts participate in Speak Up are to:
    • Collect unique data from their stakeholders.
    • Conduct a needs assessment and create a vision for 21st century learning.
    • Use the data to create inform technology initiatives or create strategic plans.
  • Who is eligible to participate in Speak Up?
    The Speak Up surveys are open to any school, district or organization that serves K-12 students in the U.S. and internationally.
  • What type of surveys do you offer?
    There are Speak Up surveys for your students (grade level appropriate K-12), teachers, librarians, principals, district administrators and parents. Surveys for students and educators are currently available in English only. The parents' survey is currently available in English and Spanish. The current Speak Up surveys include:

    Students:
    Grades K-2 Individual
    Grades K-2 Group
    Grades 3-5
    Grade 6-8
    Grades 9-12

    Educators:
    Administrators
    Principals (New this year!)
    Teachers
    Librarians

    Parents:
    Parent Survey (English)
    Parent Survey (Spanish)
  • When is Speak Up open?
    Speak Up 2011 will be open October 10th – December 23rd, 2011. Results will be available to participating schools and districts in February, 2012.
  • Why should my district participate?
    As a Speak Up participant you are part of a growing movement that values and uses their stakeholders’ opinions to inform K-12 educational decisions. The top five reasons districts participate in Speak Up are:
    • Collect unique data from their stakeholders.
    • Conduct a needs assessment and create a vision for 21st century learning.
    • Use the data to create inform technology initiatives or create strategic plans.
    • Communicate our technology needs to our stakeholders.
    • Measure the success of their technology initiatives.
  • Is there a cost to participate?
    Anyone can participate in Speak Up free of charge. Participating schools and districts can view their data against benchmark national results, online, free-of-charge beginning in February, 2012.
  • How long does it take to complete the survey?
    In general, the surveys consist of a series of multiple-choice questions plus one or two open-ended type questions (depending on the survey) at the end where you can write in your response. The survey should only take you about 20 minutes to complete. In addition, on the parents and educators surveys we ask several demographic questions that are optional. We use these responses during our data analysis to provide additional context to our national data findings.
  • What is your privacy policy?
    We acknowledge that privacy is a concern for visitors to our website. We treat any information that you provide through our web site with respect and confidentiality.
    • The Speak Up Survey does not use any permanent cookies for tracking, content analysis or any other purpose. (The Speak Up Activation process does use temporary cookies.)
    • We do not collect any personally identifiable information from students or anyone who takes the survey.
    • We do not exchange or sell any of the email addresses provided during the registration process.
    • Click here to view our privacy policy.

Getting Started

  • How do I register my district for Speak Up?
    Registration for Speak Up is quick and easy. First you will need to select a primary contact responsible for facilitating Speak Up in your district. The primary contact will then need to register your district/ update your district information by going to our Registration page located at: http://www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2011/. Once on the Registration page, just click on the green registration button and follow the instructions on the following pages!
  • How do I promote Speak Up?
    We provide a variety of tools to help you facilitate participation. The Speak Up promo material page offers convenient tools for helping make Speak Up a success in your district (and school). You can find promotion flyers for posting at each school, lesson plans for teachers, copies of the survey, a banner ad to place on your website, sample emails for encouraging participation and more.

    Encouraging participation on a regular and consistent basis will ensure high participation in the Speak Up survey and more representative data from your district Promote early and often throughout the survey period. Here are just a few ideas that Speak Up districts use to encourage participation:
    • Post a message on your district listserv.
    • Assign a primary contact responsible for facilitating Speak Up in your district.
    • Send an email to your school principals, technology coordinators, or media specialists encouraging them to promote Speak Up.
    • Put a link to the survey on your district web page (Use our clickable banner: http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speak_up_banner.html)
    • Encourage your partners (school board members, PTA liaisons, community groups) to get the word out about the importance of participating in Speak Up.
    • Issue a press release about your district’s involvement in the national Speak Up survey.
    • Publicize Speak Up on your school district's calendar.
    • Designate a day between October 10th and December 23rd as Speak Up Day and encourage as many people as possible to take the survey.
    • Encourage your principals to include Speak Up in their back-to-school activities.
    • Offer prizes to the school with the highest participation.
  • How do I know how many people have taken the survey in my district (or school)?
    Throughout the survey period, we send an email with a recap of the surveys submitted to date. During the registration process, your district (or school) will automatically be set to “opt-in.” You will have the option to change this status at anytime.
  • What are the step-by-step instructions for Educators taking the survey?
    People often ask us for the specific step-by-step directions they should use when taking the Speak Up survey. Below we have provided instructions for Educators just in case you get stuck while trying to navigate through the process:

Speak Up Data Results

  • When will Speak Up data results be available
    Survey results will be available to participating schools and districts, online, free-of-charge, beginning in Feb, 2012. Speak Up 2011 national findings will be released beginning Spring, 2012 through a variety of venues, including: Congressional Briefings in Washington, DC, national and regional conferences, and our website.
  • How do I access my district’s Speak Up data?
    We will notify you via email when your survey results are available online; we will include the link to view the results in the email.  To view Speak Up Data from previous year please visit our View Speak Up Data page.

    To view your reports, you will be required to enter your state, school or district name and the Speak Up admin password assigned to your school/district. To obtain your admin password, please email the Speak Up Team the name of your school or district and your state. We will forward you the admin password or notify the Speak Up contact of record to assist you with your request.

  • Where can I find past Speak Up reports?
    All previous Speak Up reports are available for download on our Reports page. For further inquires regarding the Speak Up reports, contact the Speak Up Team via email or via phone at 949 609-4660 ext 12.

Technical Support

  • How do I retrieve my Speak Up password?
    If you have lost your Speak Up password and are the Main Contact for your district, send us an email. Include your name, the name of your district and state in your email.  Our Project Tomorrow staff will reply via email with your district passwords within one business day.

    For confidentiality reasons, we provide passwords to the Speak Up contact of record only.  If you would like us to connect you with your Speak Up contact, send us an email and we will make a virtual introduction via email. Please include your name, the name of your district or school and the state in your email.

  • I'm not receiving weekly participation emails. How do I ensure I will receive Speak Up participation emails? 
    Participation emails are sent to Speak Up contact who have designated “Opt-In” for the participation email.  Here are a couple of quick steps to verify that your status is set up correctly:
    • Contact your district tech coordinator to verify that tomorrow.org is in your district’s safe/white list.
    • Check your spam folder and add speakup@tomorrow.org to your contacts list.
    • Verify your participation status on the Speak Up website.  To do this please visit http://www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2011/ and click on the blue “Look up Organization button”. Follow the prompts to update your district information. Once on the District Information page, verify that you have selected the opt-in option under the Contact Information section.
    • If you have any problems or questions, send us an email
  • Why am I receiving multiple participation emails?
    Its possible that your contact information is included in one or more Speak Up records.  We can easily correct this situation, forward the participation emails to speakup@tomorrow.org or send us an email name, the name of the school and state and we remove the duplicates.  If there are multiple records for a single school we will merge the survey results together.
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