Teacher/Librarian 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.
  • 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 school 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 schools 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.

    Almost one-half Speak Up students tell us they would like to vote on decisions that affect them and one-third agree they would like to be more involved in decisions at their school through surveys, such as Speak Up (Project Tomorrow, 2011). Speak Up provides you a mechanism to further engage your students in the decision making process at your school. Best of all the online surveys and reports are available to you free of charge!
  • How long does it take to complete the survey?
    In general, the survey consists 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 school for Speak Up?
    Participating in Speak Up is easy — we’ve preloaded public and private schools into our database and all you have to do is activate your school through our registration system. This process enables you to select a specific password for your school and ensures that only the people you invite to take the survey will be included in your Speak Up survey results.

    To register your school, follow these quick and easy steps:
    • Go to http://www.speakup4schools.org/Speakup2011 (registration opens Aug 15th, 2011)
    • Click on the green register here button and select the option “I would like to register one or more schools”. You will then follow the prompts to register your school.
      • During the registration process we will ask you to provide the contact name and email address (which may be you or someone you designate), as well as a “secret word” that will be used to take the survey and an admin survey to view the survey results.
        If you see "REGISTERED" or "PENDING" next to your school’s name you will need the Speak Up admin password to continue.  If you don’t know it or are unsure, send an email or call the Speak Up Team at 949 609-4600 ext 12.
    • Once you complete the registration process, you will be sent an email with the following information:
      • A confirmation of your registration
      • The secret word that you chose
      • Your participation goal
    • Add tomorrow.org to your school’s (or district’s) safe list/white list to ensure that you continue receiving the Speak Up emails.
  • I think my district might be interested in participating, what should I do next?
    If your district has not participated in the past now is the time to get your district involved! Our registration system allows a district point-person to register all schools in a district with only a few clicks! Start by getting the word out to your district administrators. Use this sample email or Superintendent Guide to share information about Speak Up with your district.

    If your district has participated in Speak Up during previous years, send a quick reminder to the Speak Up contact that Speak Up is open.  To obtain the name and email address of the Speak Up contact for your district, send an email with the name of your district and state to the Speak Up Team and will connect you virtually via email with your district’s Speak Up contact within one business day.

  • 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 school. You can find promotion flyers for posting at your school, lesson plans, copies of the survey, a banner ad to place on your school’s 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 school. Promote early and often throughout the survey period. Here are just a few ideas that Speak Up districts use to encourage participation:

    To register your school, follow these quick and easy steps:
    • Post posters around the school with the Speak Up URL. Speak Up School Flyer.
    • Post an announcement on your school and district website. Post our clickable banner on your website!
    • Announce the Speak Up survey on your school's daily broadcast announcements, on your school portal or learning management system.
    • Consider promoting Speak Up at your Back-to-School night, parent-teacher conferences, or Open house.
    • Send flyers home with students so they can participate from home.
    • Get parents involved
      • Ask your PTA to start an email contact tree or host a contest for the class with the greatest participation numbers.
      • Ask your PTA, parents groups or site councils to include the Speak Up data in their discussions and planning process.
    • Send a press release to your local paper about your school's participation in this national event.
    • Community Events
      • Pick a day between Oct. 10 and Dec. 23rd to designate as your school or town's Speak Up Day.
  • How do I get my students involved?
    Incorporating the Speak Up survey into a class lesson is a great way to get students involved in the survey.  Through the lessons, you can teach students about the importance of getting involved in local change or contributing their views to the national education dialogue.

    You can use these sample lessons to encourage students to reflect on their use of technology for learning, their involvement with school or career exploration
  • What are the step-by-step instructions for 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 and Students just in case you or your students 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 school's Speak Up data?
    We will notify the Speak Up contact via email when the survey results are available online and include the link to view the results. To view Speak Up Data from a previous year please visit our View Speak Up Data page.

    To ensure confidentiality, the Speak Up results are password protected. To view your reports, you will be required to enter your state, school and the Speak Up admin password assigned to your school. To obtain your admin password, please email the Speak Up Team the name of your school, 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 didn’t finish the survey, can I retrieve it?
    The Speak Up surveys are designed to be completed in one 20+ minute online session. We have designed the survey to automatically save your answers, each time that you click the RED arrow next button on the bottom of each page. Unfortunately, once you exit the survey you will not be able to log back in to your original survey session.

    If you would like to complete the survey, you can: 1). Start a new survey and click on the next button until you reach the question that you want to start answering or 2). Request that we delete the survey so that you can resubmit it. If you would like your survey deleted, send us an email with the survey number (which can be found on the top left hand side of the screen in red, the name of your school and state).
  • 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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