K-12 Operating System Health Survey

Every community invests significant time, talent, and resources in helping students thrive. The impact of those efforts also depends on the operating system that supports daily operations, strategic priorities, and every improvement effort.

Despite decades of effort and many examples of success, we have not yet achieved the outcomes we want for every student or prepared every student for life beyond high school.

The K–12 Operating System Health survey helps us understand how people experience their school systems. It explores stakeholder perceptions of how information flows, decisions are made, and people work together to deliver services that support student learning. The goal is to build shared understanding of where perspectives align, differ, and greater attention may better serve students and adults.

What Can Shared Understanding Make Possible?

We believe shared understanding can help communities:

Get on the same page about what is working well and where greater attention may be needed.
Better understand what helps or gets in the way of people working together effectively.
Strengthen the operating system that supports a school system’s ability to achieve its mission and better serve every student and the adults who support them.

The inaugural survey also begins a longer-term learning effort aimed at helping communities become more coordinated, coherent, and better able to consistently achieve the outcomes they aspire to for every student.

What Is a Founding Learning Partner?

Founding Learning Partners are organizations using the survey to learn alongside their communities, establish an initial baseline, develop shared understanding, and be better positioned to take meaningful action. They are also positioned to participate in a broader learning community with other partners, sharing insights and practices as the work develops.

Founding Learning Partners will receive:

Advance access to national findings to enable leadership conversations and place local experiences in a broader K–12 context.
Summaries of findings across stakeholder groups showing where experiences and perspectives align, differ, or point to areas worth exploring more deeply.
Learning conversations and webinars to help communities understand the findings and consider the implications for their organizations.
Opportunities to shape future learning and research as the surveys and supporting evidence base develop.

What to Expect

Launch Window

The inaugural national administration is anticipated for mid-October 2026, with the survey expected to remain open for until mid-November.

Preliminary Time Commitment

Approximately 15–20 minutes for most respondents.

Confidentiality

Individual responses will not be shared with employers, school districts, participating organizations, or other respondents in identifiable form.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have additional questions, please check our frequently asked questions page.

Go to FAQs

Contact Us

If supporting this effort aligns with your organization’s current priorities and If you have questions that are not covered in the FAQs, please contact us.