District survey finds higher trust among Spanish respondents; email most preferred channel, staff recommend annual polling

Wichita Public Schools presented results of a June community engagement survey that drew about 1,800 responses and a roughly 2.3% margin of error.

Main findings - Respondent mix and context: The survey split responses into staff, parents and the broader community. The district noted demographic differences between the city of Wichita and district enrollment (for example, a higher share of students in the district live at or near the poverty line compared with city averages, and 36% of district students have a language other than English spoken at home). - Trust and facility grades: Respondents who completed the survey in Spanish tended to give higher facility and trust ratings (many Spanish respondents selected A grades) while English respondents who had not been in a school building in the past five years were more likely to give a C grade to facilities. The district said familiarity with buildings is correlated with more positive facility perceptions. - Communication preferences: Email was the most preferred channel for receiving district information, followed by text and social media; local media still remains important to broader community respondents.

Planned follow‑ups The district said it will: streamline and reduce excess content on the website (noting the district currently has about 25,000 pages), run civic‑learning and visioning sessions, produce a community email newsletter, and convene small‑group visioning with about 250 survey respondents who volunteered to continue the conversation. Staff said they plan to run the survey annually to track change over time.

Ending: Communications staff said the results validate ongoing outreach efforts and will inform website reorganization, targeted engagement and periodic polling.