Members of ALBERT LEA PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT's facilities planning group agreed on a multimodal approach to gather community input ahead of any facility recommendations.

The facilitator recommended a short pilot survey to run on the district website with a pop‑up to solicit staff, parent and community responses. "I generally recommend that we stay away from Google Forms," the facilitator said, and suggested SurveyMonkey as "relatively easy." The group emphasized keeping the instrument brief to maximize response rates and suggested collecting respondents' relationship to the district and the grade level of any children.

Attendees raised concerns about sampling bias from opt‑in online surveys and noted language and access barriers. The facilitator flagged translation needs and local outreach practices: "We can get it translated in both Spanish and Korean," and noted that Korean‑language participation sometimes improved when an interpreter made phone calls to parents to collect responses.

The committee discussed supplementary outreach beyond a web survey, including targeted presentations or listening sessions for PTOs, service clubs (Rotary, Lions, Exchange), the chamber, churches, nursing homes and community‑based organizations to reach households less likely to respond online. The facilitator also cited the cost and methodology tradeoffs of scientific phone or mailed surveys, noting those vendors typically charge in the "$20 to $30,000 range." Participants recommended piloting the short survey with the task force before broader publication and agreed to assemble a list of target groups and volunteers to attend community meetings.

Next steps: staff will draft the short pilot survey and outreach list, prepare translated materials, and present survey results and any listening‑session reports at the committee's next meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 10.