Perry Local Schools

Communications Survey Results

Fall 2025

Executive Summary

Purpose

The Communications Survey was conducted to understand stakeholder perceptions of district communication effectiveness, transparency, and preferred communication methods, and to compare current results with a similar survey conducted in 2017–2018.

Key Findings

• Overall satisfaction with district communication is strong, with approximately 78% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that the district communicates effectively
• In both surveys, perceptions of transparency closely align with communication effectiveness, indicating strong trust in district messaging
• Agreement with communication effectiveness increased from approximately 61% in 2017–2018 to 78% in 2025
• Stakeholder communication preferences have shifted over time toward direct, push-based methods such as text messages, email, and app notifications
• Email remains a stable and important communication channel across both survey periods
• Social media and district websites are increasingly viewed as supplemental rather than primary communication tools

Next Steps

• Survey results indicate that current communication strategies and tools align well with stakeholder expectations. Many comments involved stakeholders receiving too much information. Future improvement efforts should focus on message coordination (ensuring efforts are not duplicated), and consistency (how messages are pushed).

Actions Taken Since 2018

• Perry Way
• 8 pages trimmed to 4 resulting in a decrease in cost and an increase in readability
• Full color
• Modernization of graphics
• Important event reminders added
• Administrative contact information added

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• Key Communicators Network
• The network makes use of “word of mouth” communication
• Includes key influencers in the Perry Community including government officials, union officers, administrators, board members, involved parents, and clergy members

• Ceasassion of Channel 22/1020 operations

• Weekly announcements
• Each building sends out a weekly digital newsletter for important announcements and upcoming event promotion

• The Quality Profile
• Changed to The State of Our Schools
• Now includes articles and data for each building, finances, maintenance, IT, athletics, and the fine arts

• Calendar
• Addition of key district facts and statistics within the yearly mailed calendar. This helps reach those who may not read other publications

Actions Taken Since 2018

• Website Redesign
• Using the 2018 survey results, our most visited pages are now featured and easy to navigate to
• Direct links now exist for the board approved calendar as well as school/district events
• Weekly announcements are posted to each school’s homepage
• Staff directory now stays automatically up to date, tying into the Infinite Campus system
• Added each building’s Facebook feed to their respective homepage
• Optimized for mobile devices (55% of the current year’s users have been via mobile devices or tablets)

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• Perry Mobile App
• Several mobile applications were researched and tested utilizing pilot groups of staff members
• ParentSquare was selected and implemented in August 2025

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• Social Media
• Building twitter accounts were combined into one district account
• A district Instagram profile was created (564 followers)
• An increased Facebook presence (currently averaging 346 posts/year) resulting in a 624% increase in yearly profile visits from 2021 – 2025 (25,410 up to 184,035).
• This school year we have already posted 277 times (as of 2/22/26) to social media

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• Staff Monthly Newsletter
• Highlights good news stories for staff and promotes upcoming events
• Celebrates staff with a staff spotlight segment where members are nominated by their peers
• Building on the principle of communicating from the inside out

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I feel that Perry Local Schools communicates with me effectively

Effectiveness: 2018 vs 2025�(Receiving Ratings of 4 & 5)

I feel that the Perry Local School District strives to be honest and transparent

Transparency: 2018 vs 2025�(Receiving Ratings of 4 & 5)

How do you prefer to receive general classroom information from your child's teacher?

How do you prefer to receive district or building information/announcements?

Communication Preferences Over Time

Which of the following do you currently use to receive information from Perry Schools?

Communication Vehicle Usage Over Time

Which social media channels do you check on a regular basis?

Are you using the new ParentSquare app?

ParentSquare Effectiveness

ParentSquare Data

ParentSquare Data

ParentSquare Data

I am a...

I am associated with...

Next Steps

• Reducing Notification Fatigue
• Establish and communicate to staff a clear communication channel framework that identifies what type of communication is worthy of sending a notification
• District level communication: Email/ParentSquare post
• Urgent communication: Text/Email/ParentSquare Alert
• Supplemental updates/good news: ParentSquare post (without notifications), Social Media, Website
• Clarify platform use expectations
• When to use SeeSaw, Dojo, ParentSquare, etc. This will help remain consistent across grade levels
• Remind/inform stakeholders that they can change their communication preferences/notifications from within the ParentSquare application (24% of respondents were unaware this is possible)
• Continue to meet with building principals and secretarial staff to ensure messaging is not duplicated/redundant and that messaging from building to building remains consistent.

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Survey results indicate that current communication strategies and tools align well with stakeholder expectations. Stakeholders are increasingly expecting communications to come to them, rather than searching for it. Future improvement efforts should focus on message coordination (ensuring efforts are not duplicated), and consistency (how messages are pushed/through what vehicle/s). Specific recommendations include:

• Continue to Push
• Important communication should continue to be pushed to stakeholders
• Social media should continue its use as a supplemental source to support main messaging and redirect to the website or Google Drive/Google Forms/ParentSquare for action items

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Next Steps

• Tell Our Story
• Tell the truth, tell it first, tell it often
• These principles should continue to encompass all communications, from crisis communications, to good news stories
• Be proactive in telling our story vs reactive

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• Evaluate
• Conduct a communications survey every 3 years to monitor progress
• Maintain independent data on social media posts and traffic
• Maintain ParentSquare communication data
• Conduct a yearly audit of website traffic to see which pages:
• Are most visited
• Are least visited