Many LTHS Teachers Lack 'Sense Of Belonging': Survey

LA GRANGE, IL – About 45 percent of Lyons Township High School's teachers lack a "sense of belonging" at the school, according to a survey.

For non-certified staff, about two-thirds feel the same way.

That information came as the result of an online survey given to employees last spring.

Patch requested the survey and its results, but the school this week declined to release the documents.

The school said the state's open records law allowed it to keep the documents under wraps. It cited the exemption that covered records that constitute "preliminary recommendations in which actions are formulated."

After pressed on the legality of its denial, the school provided the results on the percentages of the staff who feel a "sense of belonging." This information was already given during a school board meeting earlier this month.

"The rest of the metrics are still considered pre-decisional because we have not decided the best use of that data to date," Mary Lin Muscolino, the school's spokeswoman, said in an email to Patch.

She said the school would share the data when it became available. It was unclear why the survey questions themselves should be kept secret from the public.

Earlier this year, the attorney general's office ruled that written responses to a survey can be kept secret under the exemption that the high school cited.

But the attorney general's opinion did not apply to the survey questions themselves and the numerical results.

A 2013 attorney general's opinion may be more relevant. In that case, a Chicago Tribune reporter requested the crime data that the city of Harvey submitted to state police.

The attorney general sided with the reporter over the state police, saying the law did not exempt "purely factual information" from disclosure.

"The records do not touch upon any aspect of any deliberative process relating to the compilation or publication (of the data)," the office said in 2013.