At a task force meeting of the Albert Lea Public School District, leaders said the district received 565 responses to a facilities and enrollment survey and laid out plans for two public listening sessions — one during the lunch hour and a second at 6 p.m. — to gather more community feedback.

The survey sample was roughly 50.62% parents or family members, 32.2% staff, 19 students and 78 respondents who identified as community members or other, Speaker 1 said. The top priorities reported were (1) high‑quality and varied educational programming, (2) safety and condition of school facilities and (3) class sizes. Speaker 1 told the group, “So we've got, 565 responses now, so we'll go through that.”

Why it matters: Task force members said the listening sessions and survey responses will inform the options the group asks district administration to evaluate and ultimately the recommendations the board will consider. Members urged that clear financial context be included in the public presentation so attendees understand the tradeoffs involved. The group planned to invite a broad mix of participants by offering both paper and digital response formats and using small‑group discussions at the sessions.

What the task force will do next: Staff and consultants will finalize a recommended presentation and discussion prompts, share flyers and a QR code to access the survey, and post the materials online after the first round of listening sessions. The task force will reconvene on the next scheduled meeting to debrief the listening sessions, review pros and cons of options generated by small groups, and shape study tasks for administration to test.

At the meeting members discussed survey formatting and facilitation. Some suggested leading with multiple‑choice prompts to reduce the intimidation of open‑ended questions; others recommended showing simple utilization percentages per building to help nontechnical audiences. Speaker 4 said the team would prepare a concise summary slide set and indicated they would film one of the listening sessions to make the material available online for those who could not attend.

The task force emphasized that community input is one factor among many (including capacity, condition and budget considerations) that will shape any recommendation to the school board. The next task force meeting was scheduled to follow after the listening sessions so the group can incorporate community feedback into its study work.