For Eastpointe’s Superintendent Christina Gibson and Communications Coordinator Caitlyn Kienitz, collecting and analyzing student, staff, and parent feedback is vital for district decision-making and their students’ success.

That’s why, after completing a 6-month interactive strategic plan, Gibson and her team began using the ThoughtExchange platform for their perception surveys.

Critical community insights allowed the district to enhance security measures and take critical, timely action, preventing a student from bringing a weapon into school.

Gibson and Kienitz used ThoughtExchange to ask students a series of quantitative and qualitative survey questions, including, “What is one suggestion that you would have to make your school better?” They also spoke to staff and parents and conducted in-person focus groups with middle and high school students.

More than 1,300 people participated in the ThoughtExchange surveys, and the message was clear: increase security and safety measures. Participants suggested adding a new entrance, hiring security personnel, and implementing bag checks and metal detectors at the front door.

With two recent nearby school shootings, it made sense that safety and security were top of mind for families and students. However, increasing security challenged the administration’s perception of how they should treat kids when they entered the school.

Gibson explained why: “I had been in education for over 20 years, and because the landscape has changed so much, we have always seen it as a sign of weakness to add security measures. We were concerned about the stigma of bag checking.”

They needed data to support the change.

Communications Coordinator Kienitz discussed the ease of using ThoughtExchange for engagement and analysis, especially with open-ended responses to comment box questions. She said, “When you ask open-ended questions, and you have 300 students or 150 staff members respond, it’s challenging to go through those one by one.”

Across four surveys, Kienitz had 2,973 open-ended responses to analyze. Reading, sorting, theming, and reporting on these could have taken weeks—and many K-12 survey tools leave the qualitative analysis up to the leaders.

However, ThoughtExchange’s AI-powered Advisor and Article tools produced summaries, themes, and reports within seconds of closing participation.

“Having the AI do that for us instantly was so helpful,” Kienitz explains. “I could say, ‘Here's the summary. These are the top three things they said, and these are our students’ top concerns.’ ThoughtExchange neatly packaged them so the data is easy to present. I can show a summary of those open-ended questions, where you get to the heart of those concerns."

Before running perception surveys, the Eastpointe school board and administration felt that fewer security measures would improve the student experience. However, their community’s responses showed that people wanted more security in schools, not less.

Gibson believes there’s a disconnect between how schools want to run themselves and what law enforcement thinks is the safest way. However, authentic community perception data alleviates pushback from the school board.

She said, “Using ThoughtExchange, the perception data is easy to present and move on. The beauty of it is that the data speaks for itself. You just have to choose to listen to it. Sometimes, the hardest part is that gap between knowing and doing. When you know better, you might choose to do better.”

Gibson heard the community’s feedback and acted on it with the administration’s support. By implementing increased security at their school entrances, they stopped a student with a loaded gun from entering the school.

Gibson shared, “If we hadn't asked the question, if we hadn't listened to what they said, that weapon would have come into our school. That’s one of the reasons we love ThoughtExchange. Because we asked, we listened, and we acted—and we were able to stop something."

Eastpointe now has a liaison with its police department on campus—something people have requested for years. They got a grant from the state and an intergovernmental agreement with their local law enforcement agency. The next step is adding armed security.

ThoughtExchange’s AI tools optimized Eastpoint's engagement and decision-making process by quickly and easily analyzing and summarizing their perception survey data.

The district sees the platform as valuable for federally required comprehensive needs assessments. According to Gibson and Kienitz, the ThoughtExchange team has become an extension of the district's staff, providing valuable support. The district is excited to continue engaging its community and tracking changes in perception data over time using Thoughtexchange.