Alpena Public Schools employee engagement rises, but workload and behavior concerns remain

Employee engagement at Alpena Public Schools has improved since the district’s last survey, but new results presented to the Board of Education show that staff still want action on workload, leadership stability and disruptive behavior.

Cheryl Kuch, senior consultant for HR solutions at Rehmann, presented the 2026 Gallup Q12 survey data during the regular APS Board of Education meeting on Monday. The previous APS employee survey was conducted in 2024.

Engagement improves from 2024

The Gallup Q12 survey measures employee engagement through responses to 12 statements, including whether employees know what is expected of them and have the materials and equipment needed to do their work. Employees respond on a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

APS also added questions about whether employees see the district’s strategic plan in their daily work, whether leadership is creating a future they want to be part of, whether they expect to remain with the organization for two years, communication across the district, pay and incentives, and whether survey concerns will be addressed.

Kuch said the broader Gallup comparison pool includes 6 million individual responses from hundreds of organizations in the United States. In the 2026 results, APS ranked in the 33rd percentile for engagement, meaning its results were higher than 33% of organizations in the pool. The district ranked in the 26th percentile in 2024.

Superintendent Dave Rabbideau said the district’s goal is to reach the 50th percentile within five years.

Across APS, 37% of employees were classified as engaged in 2026, up from 33% in 2024. Kuch said the typical breakdown across organizations is 30% fully engaged, 54% not engaged and 16% actively disengaged. Engaged employees are described as thriving and passionate about their work, while unengaged employees lack enthusiasm and actively disengaged employees are visibly unhappy and may act out.

Transportation gains while central office declines

The survey showed notable differences among APS departments and employee groups. The transportation department’s average satisfaction score rose from 3.11 out of five in 2024 to 3.79 in 2026, an increase of 0.68.

Bus drivers and attendants increased from 2.95 to 3.59, while teachers rose from 3.80 to 3.91. Central office satisfaction moved in the opposite direction, declining from 4.32 in 2024 to 3.87 in 2026.

Kuch said most categories had more than 30% of employees classified as fully engaged in 2026.

Staff identify progress and continuing problems

Employees provided written responses to four questions, including what changes they had seen since the previous survey and what they wanted district leadership to know.

Some employees reported increased communication from central office and district leadership, specifically mentioning the Wildcat Roar newsletter. Staff also identified colleagues, coworkers and students as important reasons APS is a good place to work.

At the same time, employees raised concerns about frequent changes in building principals. One building was described as having four principals in three years. Many respondents also said workload remains a concern.

Other written feedback called for small gestures of recognition, which employees said can make a significant difference in morale. Respondents also expressed widespread frustration about what they viewed as inadequate consequences for disruptive and aggressive behavior.

Feedback about administrative presence was mixed. Some employees praised their building principals, while others criticized central office leadership.

“I mean, we don’t dismiss comments,” Kuch said. “We don’t take them off or anything like that. We don’t scrub them out or if they call out somebody, it’s there, you know. So um know that every comment is read here and every comment is considered as we look. Can we address every single comment with every action? No, we can’t. But we look at those themes and make adjustments accordingly.”

District plans follow-up discussions and spring survey

Rabbideau said he has met with almost every employee group, while building principals are meeting with staff in their buildings to review the results and discuss possible action steps.

“And then talk about action steps, how to respond to the survey,” Rabbideau said.

According to Rabbideau, employee responses will be categorized before the district asks the entire organization, from top to bottom, to provide actionable feedback. He described that process as a second wave and said it will be the first time APS has conducted it across the district in that way.

Rabbideau said he reviewed all of the verbatim comments and saw a widespread pattern of employees saying they felt overworked. Determining what employees mean by feeling overworked, and how the district can address it, will be a focus of the next steps.

APS employees are scheduled to take a pulse survey in the spring, providing the district with another set of data as it evaluates whether the planned changes are improving the workplace.