Presentation by the TBORS Survey Corps (5th Grade) TBORS Survey Results Presentation by the TBORS Survey Corps (5th Grade)

Background This project was inspired by the concept of Klal Yisrael. Klal Yisrael is the mitzvah of taking care of the entire Jewish community. We learned about Klal Yisrael by reading about examples in the real world. We read an article by Rabbi David Hartman about a kibbutz that built a road just for one man in a wheelchair. We also practiced fulfilling the mitzvah of Klal Yisrael by solving different scenarios. Our goal for this project was to fulfill the mitzvah of Klal Yisrael in our congregation. We wanted to learn more about the members of our community, so we could make TBO better and learn about what would make people like coming to more things. First, we wrote letters to the leaders of our congregation. We asked them what they would like to know about TBO members so they could do their job better. We used the responses to our letters to write rough drafts of survey questions. We made a rubric to see which questions to keep and which to get rid of. Then, we made a final draft of the survey. We publicized the survey by putting it on the TBO website. We sent emails and we made posters and flyers to put around the building. We even advertised the survey to parents in the carpool line on Sundays. When the results were in, we created graphs to represent our data and we analyzed the results. We wrote recommendations and areas for future research based on the data from the survey.

Demographics

Adults Living in TBO Households We asked TBO members how many adults they have living in their household. Some people have 1 adult in their household, but most people have 2 adults in their home.

Ages of Adults at TBO When we asked how old the adults are in households of TBO members, most adults said they are middle aged. Also, we noticed that not that many younger adults answered our survey.

Relationship Status of Adults at TBO We asked the members of TBO about their relationship status. Most people in the TBO community are legally married. 6 percent of people that answered this survey are divorced.

Time from Home to TBO We asked how long it takes to get from people’s houses to TBO. From the data, we learned that not a lot of people live within walking distance and not a lot of people live very far away. The majority of people live 15 – 30 minutes away from TBO.

Temple Membership “My three adult children were raised at TBO.” – Robyn Powell We asked how long people have been members of TBO. 33% of the people who responded to the question have been members for more than 15 years. 6% of people who responded have been members for less than 1 year. This shows that not many new members responded to the survey.

Recommendations & Areas for Future Research We need to find out more about ... younger (21 and under) congregants why don't more of our members live closer to TBO? how can we get better publicity to new members?

Children

Children in TBO Households We asked members of TBO how many children they have living in their household. About three-fifths of the members who answered our survey do have children in their house. About two-fifths of the members answered no to having children in their household.

Number of Children in TBO Households This data represents the number of children of TBO members who said that they have children living in their home. Most of the people who answered our survey said that they have two children living in their household. Very few people have more than three children.

Ages of Children at TBO Most of the people who answered the survey have children 6 – 10 years old or 11 – 14 years old. This is probably because we publicized the most to that age group. Not very many people answered the survey who had children 0 – 23 months or over 18 years, because we didn’t publicize very much to those age groups.

Children Enrolled in TBO Preschool We asked members of TBO “do you have children enrolled in TBO preschool?” About one out of ten people said they did have children enrolled in TBO preschool. Nine out of ten people said they do not have children enrolled in TBO preschool.

Children: Recommendations & Areas for Future Research We need to find out more about ... why parents send their children to TBO preschool what improvements we can make to the preschool

Religious & Hebrew School

Children in Hebrew or Religious School “We look forward to seeing our children develop their own sense of community through religious school.” – Carolyn Sloan We asked TBO families if they had children in Sunday or Hebrew school. Over three-fourths of the people who responded said they did. That might be because the people in Religious School saw our posters and flyers, but people without children did not.

Grades in Religious School

Enthusiasm about Sunday School “My fifth grader loves (Religious School) and is very happy to come.” - Laura From the information, more parents with kids who are in 2nd or10th grade answered our survey. There are not a lot of people with kids in Pre-K. There were not a lot of parents with preschoolers who did the survey because we mostly advertised it during Sunday School time.

Satisfaction with Communication at TBORS We asked TBO members how satisfied they are with the level of communication between parents and the Religious School. More than 80% of people with children in the Religious School are satisfied or very satisfied with the communication.

Satisfaction with Family Education Days We asked people how satisfied they are with Family Education Days. Most people at TBO gave Family Education Days a score of 3 or 4 on a 5-point scale. Very few people (12%) are unsatisfied with Family Education Days. But only 18% of people said that they are very satisfied with the experience.

TBORS: Recommendations & Areas for Future Research Next year we should find out why some kids like Sunday/Hebrewschool more than others by asking about ... teachers music/tefillah topics in classes

Klal Yisrael Case Studies Student describe Women of the Wall and Operation Moses as examples of times in Jewish history when we have fulfilled the mitzvah of Klal Yisrael.

Ritual

Satisfaction with Music from the Bimah We asked the TBO members how satisfied they are with the selection of music from the bimah on Shabbat and other holidays. On a scale of 1-5, almost half (48%) of our survey-takers are very satisfied with our music, and only 1% answered that they were not satisfied.

Role of Music in Spiritual Life at TBO We asked the TBO members how much the music plays a role in their spiritual lives at TBO. The majority of the survey-takers said that music plays a very important role in their spiritual lives. Without the music, people might not be as willing to come to services.

Participation in Creative Services We asked congregants how likely they are to attend creative Shabbat services, such as yoga or walking prayer services. Only 5% are vey likely to attend. 40% of our responders are somewhat likely to come to creative services, which is a much higher percent than any other answer.

Storytelling at Shabbat Services We asked our TBO members if they like the stories the rabbis tell at Family Services. The majority of the responders like the stories "a lot" or "somewhat." There were many survey-takers who said "Not applicable,” which might mean that they haven't heard the stories. Some people wrote in the "comments" section that they don't attend Family Services.

Attendance at Friday Night Services "We love Friday night services at TBO - the music, the spirit, the sense of community." - BJ Katzin We asked our congregants how often they attend Friday night services. More than half of the responders attend a few times a year. Almost everyone answered that they come to services at least once per year. In the "comments" section of the survey some people said that they're too busy with their family or too tired to come to services on Friday night.

Attendance at Saturday Morning Services “Saturday is the day we like to spend together.” – Aleece Hiller We asked our congregants how likely they are to attend Saturday morning services. About half (49%) of the people who responded are "very unlikely" to attend Saturday morning services. Another 36% are "unlikely" to come on Saturday morning.

Changes to Friday and Saturday Services "Worship is my main reason for becoming a member." - Bobbi We asked the congregants what changes in services would make them attend more regularly. Responders have many different opinions about the changes that should be made in services.

Leadership

Comfort Contacting the Board "TBO makes me feel at home and at peace when I enter the doors." - Robyn Rutman The greatest number of survey-takers are very comfortable contacting board members or committee members. 3% of responders have not needed to ask any of these leaders a question. We don't know how many of these responders know who the temple leaders are that they could speak to. We also don't know if the responders know what kinds of committees we have at TBO.

Comfort Contacting Clergy We asked our congregation how they feel about contacting the TBO clergy. The majority of our responders (60%) are very comfortable. No one responded "not applicable," so all of our responders are familiar with the clergy and might have had an opportunity to talk to them or ask them a question.

Comfort Contacting TBORS Principal We asked our congregation how comfortable they are contacting the TBORS principal. Just over 40% of our results were "very comfortable, which was the highest response in one category. "Somewhat comfortable" & "not applicable" totaled the same at 25%, which was half of our results.

Comfort Contacting Administrative Staff We asked people how comfortable they were contacting the administrative staff at TBO. 59% of the congregants responded “very comfortable.” Only 3% answered “no applicable.”

Comfort Contacting TBORS Teachers We asked the congregants how comfortable they are contacting teachers. Most of the survey-takers were very comfortable and the least amount of them were very uncomfortable.

Leadership: Recommendations & Areas for Future Research We need to ... ask congregants what would make them more comfortable speaking to temple leaders ask congregants if they would like to meet the specific temple leaders at times when congregants are gathered try to encourage people to become more active in the temple so they can meet more staff have more parties and holiday celebrations where congregants and leaders can meet ask leaders if they can create and publicize opportunities to volunteer

Social & Social Action Opportunities

Social Opportunities There were mixed answers to the question “what social opportunities would you or your family like to attend?” There didn’t seem to be a majority of people with one answer. The most people want to do the Sisterhood, but it wasn’t by much more than the other activities.

Social Action Opportunities We asked TBO members what social action activities they would like to participate in. 40% of people would like to participate in Mitzvah Day. Another popular social action activity that people is feeding the hungry.

Social/Social Action: Recommendations & Areas for Future Research In the future, we should ... keep the amount of Sisterhood/Brotherhood events because they are very popular promote Club 4/5 more find out more about what activities parents with preschoolers want at TBO

Facilities

Improvements to TBO Grounds We asked TBO members what improvements they want to make the grounds and facilities. Most people said no improvements are needed. If we did make improvements, most people want better lighting in the parking lot and new landscaping.

Facilities: Recommendations & Areas for Future Research We recommend that TBO put more lighting in the parking lot and improve the landscaping around the building.

Conclusion We learned a lot from doing this project. We learned about Klal Yisrael. We learned about TBO citizens and their opinions on how they think our community should run. We learned that if you give people a chance, they will give their honest opinion. And we learned that not everyone is 100% satisfied, and there are lots of things we could do to improve our Jewish community. From here, the staff of the temple can collect the data we have organized for you and make unbiased decisions about what changes are necessary to take place at Temple Beth Or. You can experiment with the changes and evaluate whether they are successful or not. The 5th grade also recommends a second survey to follow up on many questions un-or not fully-answered. Next year, the 5th grade class could target a more specific group of people, like kids. They could use our survey and make more detailed questions that help us find out more about why people think or feel the way they do. We also think that the 5th grade class next year could do a better job of advertising to groups like new members, younger members, or parents with kids in the preschool so that we can truly fulfill the mitzvah of Klal Yisrael and take care of everyone in our community. Thank you to the board, committee members and staff who helped us by writing letters. And to Rabbi Dinner, Pauline McNeill, Bryan Wiggins and Mike Saber for coming to our classes to talk to us. Finally, thanks to everyone who filled out the survey, and last, but not least, to the 5th grade parents.

Questions or Comments?

Thank you