Here are some of the best questions for a parent survey about school communication, plus a few tips on how you can build stronger feedback loops. You can generate a tailored conversational survey with Specific in seconds and start gathering insights right away.
Best open-ended questions for parent survey about school communication
Open-ended questions invite parents to share their perspectives and shed light on issues surveys may miss. Using these questions can surface nuanced feedback and help schools understand the story behind the numbers, especially when communication needs or gaps aren’t obvious. It’s especially valuable given that 33% of K-12 families currently feel uninformed about their child’s academic progress, pointing to a real need to uncover why communication is falling short and how to improve it. [1]
What has been the most helpful way the school has communicated with you this year?
Can you describe a time when school communication helped you support your child?
How would you like to receive updates about your child’s academic progress?
What kinds of information do you wish you received more often from the school?
Have you ever felt out of the loop about something important at the school? Please explain.
What improvements could the school make to help you stay informed about your child’s learning?
Are there any challenges or barriers you face in communicating with teachers or staff?
What advice would you give the school to improve communication with families?
Can you share an example of effective communication—or a missed opportunity—from the school?
Is there anything else you want the school to know about your communication preferences or needs?
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for parent survey about school communication
Single-select multiple-choice questions are best when you’re looking to quantify responses or when you want to give parents an easy entry point to a conversation. Parents may find it simpler to click a choice than to write out responses, especially if they’re in a hurry, and these questions are perfect for spotting trends or starting deeper conversations with follow-ups.
Examples:
Question: How often do you receive updates about your child's academic progress?
Weekly
Monthly
Once per semester
Rarely/Never
Other
Question: What is your preferred form of communication from the school?
Email
Phone calls
Text messages
School app/portal
Other
Question: How satisfied are you with the information you receive about helping your child at home?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Neutral
Unsatisfied
When to follow up with “why?” If a parent selects “Unsatisfied” with the information received to help at home, following up with “Why do you feel this way?” uncovers what’s missing—whether it’s clarity, frequency, or the type of resources needed.
When and why to add the “Other” choice? Add “Other” when you suspect you don’t know all possible answers. The follow-up lets parents explain their unique preferences, surfacing new ideas that aren’t on your radar.
NPS question for a parent survey about school communication
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is simple but powerful: “How likely are you to recommend our school’s communication to other parents?” on a 0–10 scale. It gives you a snapshot of overall satisfaction and loyalty, then lets you probe further based on the response. For school communication, it makes sense—especially since less than 40% of parents say they receive regular guidance on supporting their child academically, so loyalty can be very telling about the real quality of what’s happening. [1] Try an NPS survey for parents about school communication.
The power of follow-up questions
If you want deeper insights, always leverage automated follow-up questions. Specific’s automatic follow-up feature harnesses AI to ask context-aware questions based on the parent’s response, just like an expert interviewer. This makes surveys feel like conversations, so you get richer detail and far fewer vague answers—which is crucial, given that only 4% of parents were satisfied with information on helping their kids learn at home. [2] Follow-ups save time by making every answer clearer, rather than forcing you to clarify via email weeks later.
Parent: “I hardly ever get progress updates.”
AI follow-up: “What type of updates would help you stay more informed about your child’s learning?”
How many follow-ups to ask? In most surveys, two or three follow-ups are enough to get full context. With Specific, you can set the system to stop follow-ups when you’ve learned enough, so the survey experience stays smooth and parents don’t get fatigued.
This makes it a conversational survey—one that feels less like an interrogation and more like a genuine chat that values every perspective.
Analyze unstructured feedback easily: Even with mountains of open-ended replies, AI-powered survey response analysis tools can instantly group themes and pull actionable takeaways, so nothing is lost in the noise.
Automated follow-up questions are new—and they’re game-changing. Try generating a parent survey to see how it drives richer feedback effortlessly.
How to compose a prompt for ChatGPT or other AI to create great questions
To get the best questions for your parent survey about school communication, how you prompt the AI matters. For basic brainstorming, try:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Parent survey about School Communication.
Want even better results? AI gives stronger, more relevant questions when it understands your role, your school, and your goal—so add context like:
We’re a K-8 public school aiming to improve communication with families. Suggest 10 open-ended survey questions to help us identify gaps in how we inform parents about academics, events, or support resources. Focus on accessibility, clarity, and convenience.
Next step, use AI to organize ideas clearly:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, focus further with:
Generate 10 questions for categories “Communication preferences,” “Feedback on updates,” and “Barriers to engagement.”
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey transforms feedback from a stiff “form” to a real-time chat. With AI, each question can spark follow-ups, probe for detail, and adjust to previous answers—making parents feel heard and making their feedback actionable, not just checked boxes. Compared to traditional surveys, this approach is naturally more engaging and yields deeper responses.
Manual Survey | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Static set of questions, no adjustments for individual responses | AI adapts in real time, asks clarifying follow-ups based on each answer |
Hard to collect qualitative feedback at scale | Collects rich, nuanced insight without requiring more admin work |
Time-consuming survey creation and editing | AI survey builder can create survey from scratch in seconds |
Manual analysis needed for open responses | AI summarizes responses, distills themes, and supports conversational analysis with AI |
Why use AI for parent surveys? Many parents’ situations—and communication needs—are complex. An AI survey example shines because it keeps the feedback process natural, adaptive, and fast, while helping schools drill down to the “why” behind the “what.” Building an AI-powered survey is a massive shortcut compared to piecing forms together by hand, and easily outperforms traditional methods when your goal is richer parent engagement and actionable insight.
Specific offers a best-in-class user experience in conversational surveys, so both school staff and parents find the entire process clear, respectful, and surprisingly engaging.
See this school communication survey example now
Start collecting real, actionable insights from parents on school communication. Experience the power of conversational, AI-generated surveys and unlock deeper parent engagement with just a few clicks.