Annual CollaboRATE FAQs
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What is CollaboRATE?
- CollaboRATE is Denver Public Schools’ annual all-employee survey, designed to provide leaders, teams and DPS as a whole with feedback to help us grow and improve.
- The survey consists of 3 parts: District Feedback, Employee Engagement and Leader Feedback
- District Feedback asks specific questions about key initiatives and work happening across the district
- Engagement measures employee satisfaction and engagement
- Leader Feedback is an opportunity to provide feedback to your direct supervisor
- The survey will launch on Tuesday, February 21st and will close on Monday, March 6
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Why should I participate?
This is your opportunity to share your voice – to let us know what’s working and how we can continue to improve. This survey is one of the most important tools you can use to help shape the future of your team and DPS. The feedback you provide is important to helping individual school and department leaders grow and develop. It also helps improve the culture in our schools and DPS as a whole. In the past, survey results have led to changes and improvements across DPS, including our recognition programs, increased equity in our compensation system, improved team performance, as well as defined visions of a DPS graduate and a DPS classroom.
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How do I take the CollaboRATE survey?
- You will receive an email with a unique link on February 21st. The email will come from DPS and will have a link to the survey in K12 Insight. The survey will take about 15–30 minutes to complete.
- Employees will continue to receive reminder emails until they have completed the survey.
- To access the survey, click on the link in your email
- When you get to the leader portion, you will be asked to select the leader for whom you would like to give feedback from a dropdown menu. Please give feedback to your direct supervisor.
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Self-Identification Questions
- CollaboRATE includes self-identification questions. We are committed to making sure we hire, reach out to, and provide an equitable opportunity to all qualified people. To help us with our shared core value of accountability, we are asking that you share different ways that you identify. The goal of this section is for us to be able to measure the culture and climate of our colleagues from marginalized backgrounds.
- Completing this information is completely voluntary, but we hope that you will help us make DPS a more inclusive environment. Team DPS does not discriminate on the basis of race/(dis)ability/gender/or sexual orientation, and you may voluntarily self-identify without fear of any punishment or retribution based on how you choose to answer. If you believe that you have experienced this, you can report this on IntegraReport here (https://integrareportbkd.com/).
- You can learn more about the definitions related to these categories here.
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Can I forward the survey? What if someone didn’t receive it?
- Please do not forward the survey, as each email contains a unique link for each employee.
- If you or someone you know did not receive the email with the unique survey link.
- Wait until the next morning. You will receive an email reminder every few days until you complete the survey.
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Are my responses confidential?
- Yes. This is a confidential survey. CollaboRATE is administered by DPS through K12 Insights.
- Your responses are strictly confidential. In order to better understand employee engagement and experience, a small number of DPS analysts will access and analyze the data. These analysts will treat the data with absolute confidentiality. Nobody beyond the analysts will have access to individual-level data.
- Please note: We may be required to disclose responses by law, court order, or government regulation, or in emergencies (e.g., threat of harm to others).
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How will my responses be shared?
- All information you provide is confidential – supervisors will not receive individual employee responses. Only supervisors with five or more responses will receive a report that groups all employee feedback into an aggregate format, which means they will not be able to identify how you personally responded to any question.
- Leaders with five or more responses will be able to see a summary of the open-ended comments. Although the comments will not be tied to any individual person, please use the open-ended comment space to provide constructive feedback.
- Reports do not tie participants to their responses. Rather, the final reports will only include aggregated results and open-ended responses, which means no one reviewing the survey results will be able to identify how you personally responded to any question. In addition, the aggregated responses will only be shared at the district level. Your manager will not have access to any information about how you personally responded in the survey.
- District-level reports may also indicate how the entire population responded, how specific schools responded, or what percentage of staff members participated.
- An example of how the data would be reported is: Overall XX% agree or strongly agree that “At DPS, diversity and inclusiveness are appreciated and encouraged.” However only XX% of XYZ group answered favorably.
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What (and who) am I able to provide feedback for?
- Every employee will be asked to provide feedback on how DPS and their school/department is doing as a whole.
- School-based team members will be asked to answer a number of questions about their specific schools. For these questions, please provide feedback on your entire school team.
- Central support team members will be asked to answer a number of questions about “MY DEPARTMENT.” Each leader will inform their teams on how to interpret “MY DEPARTMENT” for the purpose of the survey.
- Please confirm with your leader on how you should interpret the MY DEPARTMENT questions before you begin the survey.
- Team members will also be asked to provide feedback about their leaders. Please provide feedback about your direct supervisor first. You can provide feedback to up to 4 leaders total.
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Will the survey be available in Spanish?
Yes. All employees will be given the choice to take the survey in either English or Spanish. To access the Spanish version, click on the survey link in your email. Once the screen opens, use the dropdown menu in the upper-right to change the survey to Spanish.
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Can I take the survey at home?
Yes. You can take the survey wherever you have access to your DPS email and the Internet, including on your cell phone.
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When will the results be available?
The results will be shared in mid-to-late-March district-wide. Your leader will also share your school/department results with your team directly.
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Who can I contact with questions?
- Technical Support and General Survey Assistance: surveys@dpsk12.net
- CollaboRATE content questions: dpscollaborate@dpsk12.org