Best questions for parent survey about school communication

Here are some of the best questions for a parent survey about school communication, plus our tips on crafting them for powerful insights. You can build your survey with Specific in seconds and let AI handle the heavy lifting for you.

Best open-ended questions for parent survey about school communication

Open-ended questions let parents express their real thoughts and unique experiences. They’re best when you want richer detail, new ideas, or a sense of what’s working (or failing) that you might not have considered. Ready for direct feedback? Use these open-ended questions:

1. What information do you wish the school communicated more effectively?

2. Can you describe a recent example of when school communication worked well for you?

3. When have you felt out of the loop regarding your child’s education or school events? What happened?

4. If you could change one thing about how the school keeps you informed, what would it be?

5. How do you prefer to receive important updates from the school (for example: email, text, app, paper)?

6. What types of communication help you feel most connected to your child’s learning?

7. Has school communication ever caused confusion or frustration for you? What made it difficult?

8. What suggestions would you give to improve communication between teachers and parents?

9. Describe any barriers you face in staying informed about school news or your child’s progress.

10. Is there anything else you’d like to share about school communication?

Open-ended questions surface the “why” and “how” that drive parent satisfaction – which is critical, considering that 95% of parents believe their involvement is important to their child’s achievement, with 80% wanting even more communication from teachers. [1]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for parent survey about school communication

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect for quantifying sentiments or establishing benchmarks. Sometimes it’s easier for parents to pick from a few clear options than to write out complex answers—plus, it gives you measurable data and helps start a conversation you can deepen with follow-up questions. Here are three strong examples:

Question: How satisfied are you with the frequency of communication you receive from the school?

• Very satisfied

• Somewhat satisfied

• Neutral

• Somewhat dissatisfied

• Very dissatisfied

Question: Which method do you find most effective for receiving school updates?

• Email

• Text message

• School app

• Printed flyers

• Phone call

• Other

Question: How quickly do you typically receive responses when you contact school staff?

• Within a few hours

• Same day

• Next day

• More than 2 days

• Rarely hear back

When to follow up with “why?” Every time a response signals dissatisfaction, ambiguity, or strong preference, always ask "why." For example, if a parent selects “Somewhat dissatisfied” with communication frequency, trigger the follow-up: “Could you share what’s missing for you?” This uncovers actionable details and context you’d otherwise miss.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? Always add “Other” when you know your options may not cover every scenario. If a parent chooses “Other,” a quick follow-up like “Could you specify?” often uncovers new ideas or unique barriers you hadn’t anticipated.

Should you use an NPS question in parent surveys about school communication?

Yes—NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a simple but powerful tool for measuring how likely parents are to recommend your school’s communication practices to others. It helps gauge overall trust and satisfaction, and is easy to benchmark over time. Since schools with active parent engagement see higher rates of satisfaction and trust [2], an NPS question gives you a signal of your community’s health and how it stacks up against best-in-class communication efforts.

Try an NPS survey for parent-school communication and see how your parents feel—over time, you’ll track both improvements and problem areas in a single score.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are where you get to the heart of parent needs. Instead of generic survey forms, AI-powered automated follow-up questions in Specific keep the conversation flowing, just like a skilled researcher would prompt for more details. This is key for uncovering deeper insights. For instance, 60% of parents felt that the helpfulness, timeliness, and courteousness of school responses needed improvement [2]—these factors are invisible unless you dig in with smart follow-ups.

• Parent: "I usually get updates too late."

• AI follow-up: "Can you share an example of when a late update caused an issue for you or your child?"

How many follow-ups to ask? In practice, two or three follow-ups usually get you the context you need. Set a limit so parents don’t feel interrogated, and use branching to skip ahead when you’ve collected the insight. Specific has a setting for this—maximum value, minimal hassle.

This makes it a conversational survey—follow-ups transform your survey from a static list of questions into a dynamic, human chat that builds rapport and uncovers stories behind the answers.

AI analysis, open-ended responses—even if your survey generates lots of complex text responses, you don’t have to sweat analysis. With powerful AI survey response analysis, you can summarize, filter, and dig for trends across all answers with a single click.

Follow-ups are a new survey superpower—if you haven’t tried them yet, generate a survey and see the experience for yourself.

How to prompt ChatGPT or any AI to generate great parent survey questions

Using ChatGPT or any GPT-based tool, start simple but stack on context for best results. Try this:

First prompt for a starting list:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for parent survey about school communication.

Then, give context! Tell the AI about your school, communication challenges, or goals. For example:

Our school serves a diverse community, and I want to understand communication gaps affecting non-English speaking families. Please suggest open-ended survey questions that uncover pain points and preferences in how we share updates with parents.

Refine the output by asking:

Look at these questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Finally, pick the category you want to go deep on, and prompt:

Generate 10 questions for the categories “Feedback on school updates” and “Preferred communication channels.”

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys use AI to interact with respondents much like a real human would: by asking follow-ups, clarifying confusion, and keeping the experience friendly and intuitive. Unlike traditional forms, a conversational survey feels more like a chat—one reason why response rates tend to be higher and the insights more candid.

This is a major shift from manual survey creation, which is often slow, repetitive, and leads to generic questions and incomplete data. Here’s a helpful comparison:

Why use AI for parent surveys?
You get best-practice questions in seconds, a friendly experience for respondents, and you uncover the “why” behind parent perspectives. For a real-world AI survey example, check out Specific's AI survey generator. Specific’s conversational surveys are best-in-class, ensuring parent feedback is both smooth and engaging—whether you’re gathering quick check-ins or deep insights.

If you want to learn how to create a survey for parents about school communication from scratch, see our how-to article for clear guidance and tips.

See this school communication survey example now

You can create your survey in moments and discover what parents really think—enabled by conversational, AI-powered follow-ups and instant response analysis.