Lake Zurich students take a stress test

Lake Zurich High School students Dan Dreiling and Mason Karigan work together as they study for finals Jan. 14 at the Ela Area Public Library. | Dan Luedert~Sun-Times Media

Updated: February 25, 2013 12:22PM

LAKE ZURICH — They didn’t lodge too many complaints, but a significant number of Lake Zurich High School students reported that homework and temperatures in the school can become overwhelming.

Those findings were among the statistics School Perceptions president Bill Foster presented to District 95 officials at their Committee of the Whole Meeting on Jan. 10. The report was a result of last fall’s Social Emotional Learning (SEL) survey administered to the district’s students, staff and parents.

Foster developed the survey with superintendent Mike Egan to help school decision-makers better understand the most significant causes of school-related stress for students in the district’s high school and middle schools.

Though he’s gathered and analyzed data for school districts across the country for more than 10 years, Foster said that District 95’s request was different from the others.

“The social emotional stress part; that was a bit uncharted territory for me,” Foster explained.

Overall, the survey results show that a large percentage of the district’s parents, staff and students at every level are satisfied with the school’s resources and commitment to their futures.

School board members, however, initiated a conversation about certain data that concerned them.

Members said they were surprised to learn that roughly half of the high school students surveyed reported that they were assigned too much homework in general.

“This is the one that I think we need to take a look at, because you have 50 percent of kids saying ‘I have too much homework,’ and only 20 percent saying that it’s too hard,” said School Board president Kathy Brown.

Brown and her colleagues said they intend to further discuss what could be done to help students understand how much time should be spent on homework. Brown also suggested teachers should estimate how much time students should spend on their assignments, and relay that information to set a benchmark.

“Temperature at school” ranked fifth in the list of 28 different stress causing factors for high school students, falling just below “worrying about getting into the college of my choice,” and above “too busy with activities outside of school.”

Noticing that students from the middle and elementary schools also listed temperature as a leading cause for school-related stress, the board agreed that they would initiate further discussions on the matter.

“I know that’s an ongoing thing, but that has to tell us that we have to fix this,” Board member Doug Goldberg said, noting that even the teachers had it high on their list of stress for students.

Brown added that students from Middle School North had complained about the school’s cold temperatures before, while others noted that May Whitney Elementary School is consistently hot at the beginning of the school year.

The board plans to continue its discussion on the survey results before spring, and plans to develop more in-depth cross tabulation surveys to distribute at a later date.

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