Naperville CUSD 203 invited the community, parents, staff, alumni families, neighbors, to grade its communications and say plainly what to keep and what to fix. Here's everything they told us, published in full.
Who we heard from
n = 0completed responses
Overwhelmingly current parents — the right audience for a survey about day-to-day district communication. About 1 in 9 respondents is district staff, giving an inside/outside read on the same questions.
Connection to the district
Grade band of their children (multiple select)
Why people attend Focus203 meetings
Optional open-text question, themed from responses.
"To get all the information first hand and ask questions directly to change makers."
Attendees want to share perspectives and contribute to decisions, not just receive updates.
Regular updates on initiatives and key developments affecting students and schools.
"Focus sessions/townhall with a purpose. Also, if there are renovations or renderings of future renovations to show expenses."
The trust ledger
4 statementsstrongly agree–disagree
Communications are read as clear and on-time. Transparency is where the ledger doesn't balance — the lowest agreement and the highest disagreement of any statement tested.
Rate how well they communicate (5-star avg)
"Enough explanation for decisions" (1–5 avg)
Feeling informed
self-reportedMost people feel at least somewhat informed and are actively looking. The tail worth watching: 1 in 6 feels uninformed on things that matter to them.
How informed do you feel?
How often do you seek / receive district info?
How information travels
used vs.rated most effective
Email is used the most and rated the most effective — the rare channel that lives up to its own volume. The Talk 203 Newsletter is the opposite story: heavily used, far less often called effective. Text message is quietly punching above its weight.
Where people currently get info, vs. what they call most effective
Preferred medium overall
How often people want to hear from each channel
| Channel | Top preference |
|---|---|
| Weekly — 66.8% | |
| Text | As needed — 53.6% |
| Social media | As needed — 58.7% |
| Phone calls | As needed — 88.6% |
Reading: email is the one channel people are comfortable hearing from on a set weekly rhythm. Everything else should be reserved for when there's actually something to say.
What matters most
select all that applySafety and district decisions/policy top the list — ahead of student achievement. Budget ranks lower here even though it dominates the open-ended comments in Finding 07 — people aren't asking for budget info by default, but notice sharply when it's missing.
Being heard
voice & engagementPeople feel reasonably comfortable speaking up. Whether it lands is a different question — and the same building-vs-district gap from Finding 02 shows up again here.
Do leaders listen to and consider input?
Comfort sharing feedback with the district
Interest in in-person engagement (town halls, tours, Q&A)
Willing to join a follow-up focus group
What would encourage attendance at an in-person event? n = 65 write-in responses
Childcare support and accommodations would reduce barriers for working parents.
Trust increases when people can see how feedback actually informs decisions.
School-specific issues draw stronger interest than broad district discussions.
"Focus sessions/townhall with a purpose. Also, if there are renovations or renderings of future renovations to show expenses."
In their own words
1,050+ open responsessentiment-scored & balanced
Every card below is a real, verbatim response — nothing paraphrased or written by us. We ran sentiment analysis across the open-ended questions and pulled an even mix of positive, constructive, and critical quotes, so the tab reflects the full range of what people actually said rather than skewing toward one end.
What the district does well
"The district communicates quickly when there is an urgent or district-wide issue, such as safety concerns, technology issues, or other time-sensitive updates."
"The variety of ways to get information is excellent and very well-rounded."
"Teachers' emails are excellent and keep us informed of what is going on at school and in the classroom."
"The school-level social media pages and weekly newsletters are excellent!"
"I always get my weekly email and I like the list of upcoming events and opportunities."
What should improve
"Consolidate all info into one accessible place rather than having to search through emails or texts."
"Reduce the overall number of emails — important information gets lost in the plethora of unnecessary ones."
"Sometimes the links don't work, or the information is hard to find once you get to the landing page."
"Organization of info — the website has been awful for years."
"Way too much information; there are so many emails that they get ignored."
Looking ahead — what people want next
"One page or webpage to find all communication and updates."
"Targeted emails to each of the three school levels — elementary, junior high, and high school."
"Website search engines are generally not helpful for finding the information I need."
"They do not share all the information, just what they want the community to know — don't sugar coat or hide decisions."
"Transparency. It always feels fake and insincere."
By stakeholder group
community members (n=17)& parents/guardians
Two groups get their own read here: community members without kids currently enrolled (a small but telling sample), and parents/guardians of enrolled students — the core audience — asked specifically what would improve district-level communication for them.
Community members & local partners — n = 17
How relevant is district communication to them?
How effective is it for their organization/sector?
Small sample, but a sharp signal: 76% say communication is "not very" or "not at all" effective for their organization or sector — the worst effectiveness score anywhere in this survey.
Requests for clear explanations of spending priorities, administrative salaries, and how tax dollars are allocated.
Frustration with messaging perceived as curated to protect the district's image rather than fully informative.
More timely information about how and why major decisions get made.
"Better explanations of how students are taught how to critically think, not what to think."
Even taxpayers without enrolled students want better tools to stay informed and engaged.
Parents & guardians of enrolled students
Asked directly: what would improve district-level communication for you as a parent/guardian?
Clear explanations of decisions, challenges, and tradeoffs before actions are finalized.
Streamline into one centralized system; reduce repetitive messages and information fatigue.
Key information presented prominently — not buried in lengthy text.
Personalized communication would cut unnecessary messages and improve relevance.
"Sometimes it seems arbitrary what information we get, and what I find out randomly from another parent who knows for whatever reason."
Final reflections
1,046 responses"what are we missing?"
The closing question — what, if anything, are we missing that you'd like to know more about — surfaced a distinct set of gaps from everything else in this survey.
Inconsistent updates on student progress and uneven responsiveness make it hard for families to support learning at home.
Requests for clearer explanations of spending priorities and administrative structure, earlier in the process.
Important information is often difficult to find or buried within lengthy communications across channels.
Questions about whether safety incidents are communicated fully and promptly, and consistently across schools.
"What are we doing to fill that budget gap, so this isn't an annual issue?"
What this means
The trust gap sits at the top, not the classroom.
Educators and school leadership both score around 4 out of 5. District leadership drops to 3.66, and "enough explanation for district decisions" is the single lowest score in the whole survey (3.19/5). The further a decision is from the classroom, the less understood it feels.
Transparency, specifically, is the fix.
It's the weakest of the four trust statements quantitatively (32.7% disagree) and it's the #1 open-text theme across three separate questions. Not "communicate more" — communicate more openly about how and why decisions get made.
Email is earning its place. The newsletter isn't, quite.
Email leads on both use and effectiveness — a genuinely well-matched channel. Talk 203 Newsletter is used by over half of respondents but rated effective by less than a third of them. Worth asking what's in it, and whether it's the right format for what people actually want.
Budget silence reads as evasion, not disinterest.
Budget/finance ranks lower as a stated priority (38.6%) than safety or policy — but it's one of the most common specific asks in every open-text question. People aren't demanding budget updates by default; they notice sharply when the numbers aren't explained.
People want to be asked before, not told after.
"Explain board/district decisions" recurs as a theme independent of transparency generally — a specific ask for input windows before votes, not just better after-the-fact explanations.
Community and business stakeholders are the most disconnected group in the survey.
Only 17 responses, but 76% call district communication "not very" or "not at all" effective for their organization — the single worst effectiveness score anywhere in this data. Small sample, but a group worth a deliberate outreach plan rather than the default parent-facing channels.
The teacher–parent handoff breaks down at secondary school.
Showed up unprompted in the closing "what are we missing" question: consistency drops noticeably once students move from elementary into middle and high school, right as communication shifts from one teacher to many. Worth a specific secondary-level communication standard.