A public opinion survey has been put on the Frederick County School System website. Beginning on Wednesday, May 2nd, citizens can answer questions about their satisfaction with how their children are educated. "I'm going to use a phrase with you called customer satisfaction," says Steve Hess, Director of Research, Development and Accountability for the school system. "We believe families are part of our customers. Students certainly are our customers. This biennial survey is one of the tools we use to assess the degree of customer satisfaction with our schools and our programs."

Residents can participate in the survey by going on line to www.fcps.org, and click on a link to the survey. There are limited number of paper surveys at area schools in both English and Spanish. The survey will remain on line until May 16th.

Hess says the survey consists of seven sets of questions, and it's trying to judge the extent of partnership and engagement between families and school staff. "Why is that important?" he asks. "Because we know in school districts and schools where there's a really is a high degree of family engagement with school staff, students do much better in such schools."

Hess says the results from the survey should be available in June. They will be presented to the Board of Education October as part of a report on the school system's master plan, although members will have the results way of the poll way before that time.

It's possible that some responses to the survey could generate action on the part of the School Board. "On some areas, there's still an awful lot of 'don't know' responses," Hess says. "We believe that some of those responses are 'actionable,' meaning there are things we need to do as a system to better communicate these opportunities to parents and things of that nature."

Fliers will be sent home with elementary and middle school students on Wednesday to their parents about the survey. Parents of high school students who have signed up for "Find Out First" will receive an e-mail notice with a link to the survey. It will also go out on Twitter.