Survey finds high overall satisfaction with District 41 but flags academics, communication and behavior for follow-up

A community survey presented June 16 to the Glen Ellyn School District 41 Board of Education found strong overall approval for the district but also identified several areas for targeted follow-up.

Derek Gottlieb, representing School Perceptions, told the board the independent survey ran through April 28 and produced "877 total respondents for a 7% response rate." Gottlieb said that while the response rate was lower than some surveys tied to referenda, the sample size was still sufficient to draw inferences and to compare District 41 responses to similar districts using National Center for Education Statistics criteria.

The survey used multiple scales. On a 1-to-4 satisfaction scale, items such as delivering a high-quality education, keeping the public informed, building community pride and managing funds appropriately scored at least 72% "great or good," and "each of these is significantly above the comparison average," Gottlieb said. On a 0-to-10 likelihood-to-recommend question, District 41 averaged 7.91 versus a 7.17 comparison average.

Board members and administrators focused on items below an 80% agreement threshold. Board member Jessica Buttimer said she viewed "anything under 80% as an opportunity for us to either make an improvement or maybe just communicate better," and asked how the district planned to respond. Superintendent Jeff said administration would "talk through" lower-scoring items with principals, use the survey as baseline data tied to the strategic plan, and meet with building leaders individually to determine which areas each principal would address.

Survey highlights reported by Gottlieb included: - Strong agreement (above 90%) that parents feel welcome at their child’s school and that school staff are approachable. - 83% agreement that District 41 meets kindergarten needs; 92% agreement that schools are safe and secure. - Areas of lesser agreement included perceptions of how much a child is learning and how updated parents feel about their child (both below 80% but still above the comparison in many items). - Planning priorities where groups differed: reading/literacy and mental health services ranked high across parents and non-parents; staff rated student behavior and discipline as a higher planning priority than parents.

Board members and administrators discussed the staff–parent discrepancy on behavior. Board member Jason Lobach noted a roughly 30-point difference between staff and parents on whether student behavior should be a top planning priority; Gottlieb and others explained the survey allowed respondents to choose up to four planning priorities, which can produce that statistical effect when one group selects an item more often.

Gottlieb also summarized open-ended comments that requested more extracurricular offerings and more advanced-placement or extension opportunities for high-achieving students.

Nut graf: School Perceptions’ report gives District 41 a generally favorable score compared with similar districts but points to several actionable areas — academic challenge for high-achieving students, parent updates on student progress and divergent staff/parent views on behavior — that the administration said it will investigate with principals and fold into strategic-plan metrics.

Board members said they would use the report alongside other district measures (5Essentials, staff surveys, student data) to develop targeted steps for the coming year. Superintendent Jeff said special education, preschool planning and instructional technology would be priority topics next year and that the survey results would serve as baseline metrics for the district’s strategic-plan goals.

The board did not take any formal votes tied to the survey during the meeting; administrators described the next steps as internal planning and principal-level work to be reported in future updates.

Ending: The survey presentation and board discussion concluded with the district pledging targeted follow-up; no public comments were submitted on the survey during the meeting.