The board should not directly try to gauge parent satisfaction with the school. Soliciting regular input from the organization’s key stakeholders is a management function.
From a governance perspective, the ultimate measure for gauging parent satisfaction with the school is to track student retention. Key questions to ask are:
- What is our student retention level?
- How does this compare to schools with comparable demographics in our area?
- How does this compare to the top performing schools in our area?
- Are there particular transition points where we seem to lose a lot of students (e.g., from elementary to middle school or middle to high school)? If so, what accounts for this?
- Does the management team conduct exit interviews with students and parents who leave our school?
- Do we conduct a parent satisfaction survey?
- If so, how do we use the data collected?
In most states, an annual parent satisfaction survey is required. Every year, the CEO should share both the actual survey questions and a summary of the results with the board.
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