CARA Services for Catholic Schools

Catholic schools can take several approaches to surveying their community, depending on how they plan to use the resulting data. One approach is to survey parents of students enrolled in the school. Using this approach, parents are asked a variety of questions, including why they chose the school and their satisfaction with school programs. Another approach is to survey those parents who do not send their children to the parish school, but who are active in the parish. This type of survey usually is conducted in conjunction with a parish survey. A series of questions are added to a parish questionnaire specifically targeting parents of children who are not enrolled in the school. A third type of survey CARA offers is directed at helping school leaders with school accreditation.

 Topics

A CARA School Survey often include questions on these topics:

  • academics

  • extracurricular activities

  • mission and ministry

  • school personnel

  • communications

  • facilities

  • tuition/costs

  • demographics of your student body

  • parental involvement

  • fundraising

  • transportation

  • uniforms

  • school day schedule

  • student leadership development

  • preparation for high school and/or college

For more information about how CARA can help your Catholic school with planning, contact CARA Schools Team, Mary Ellen Fise.

Surveys of Parents of Enrolled Students:

In consultation with school staff, CARA can design a questionnaire for parents of students enrolled in the school. This questionnaire could cover such topics as satisfaction with school administration, opinions of parents on the school facilities, the likelihood of parents recommending the school to family and friends, and other topics useful for planning. Once the completed questionnaires are returned to CARA, a user-friendly statistical report would be delivered to the school outlining major findings, and showing specific responses by sub-populations within the school.

View more about the survey options and pricing here:

CARA School Survey Fact Sheet

Sample School Report

Surveys of Parents in the Parish:

Using CARA’s Parish Surveys, parishes are given the tools to survey all people in the pews on a given weekend. These surveys can be designed to ask specific questions of those parents in the parish who do not have their children enrolled in the parish school. Using these data, CARA researchers then compile user-friendly reports for parish decision makers.

Surveys for School Accreditation:

Many accrediting associations require a survey of constituencies. CARA can design a survey to meet the needs of schools facing accreditation. This survey can meet the targets set by accrediting bodies and also gather data requested by parish and school leadership. Using a CARA designed survey layout, the questionnaire is more polished and professional, and the reports more detailed, than a typical accreditation survey.