Grade 12 Transition to Post-Secondary Survey

Dear WRDSB Families/Caregivers

The transition from secondary school to a post-secondary path presents students with opportunities to grow and can also be a time of uncertainty and vulnerability for some students. WRDSB wants to make sure that students have the resources, opportunities, and support they need to be successful in this next step of their lives.

What are students being asked to do?
Grade 12 students are invited to complete the WRDSB Transition to Post-Secondary School Survey online during class time in the month of June. The survey will take 10 – 15 minutes to complete.

What kinds of questions are on the survey?
In this survey we are asking Grade 12 students about getting ready for their post-secondary path. Some examples include questions about: their post-secondary plans in the fall, their experiences developing a plan to achieve their post-secondary goals, how prepared they feel for their next steps after finishing secondary school, and the things they are looking forward to or are concerned about. All survey questions can be viewed here.

What else do you need to know about this survey?
The survey is voluntary. This means that students do not have to participate if they don’t want to and it will not affect their relationship with their teachers, their school/program or the school board. This also means that students don’t have to answer any question they do not want to answer. They can skip any question on the survey by leaving it blank.

The survey is anonymous. This means that no one will know which answers are theirs.  Students will not be asked to provide their name or other personal information that could identify them such as their email address or student ID.

Students can change their mind about taking part after they’ve started the survey by closing the survey and not submitting their answers.

How will the information that students provide be protected?
Once students submit their survey, their responses will be combined with the responses of all the other students who take part in the survey. The results of the survey will be reported for the entire group of students who take part. Both of these things will help protect individual student responses from being identified.

Only the WRDSB staff members who will analyze the survey results will have access to students’ survey responses. They will keep the survey responses in password-protected files on a secure department computer for 7 years.

How will the information that students provide be used? 
The WRDSB will use the results of this survey to help improve the ways we support students’ transitions to the next step in their lives. We will share summaries of the results with participating schools, board staff, trustees, and the Ministry of Education.

Who can you contact if you have questions about this survey?
If you have any questions please contact your child’s school principal.

Thank you for your continued interest in our schools and support for student learning at WRDSB.

Dana Liebermann, Ph.D.

Executive Manager, Research and Organizational Transformation