Response rate not as high as expected
By: Gwen Runkle
Still haven’t taken part in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District’s community survey? Don’t worry. There’s still time.
The deadline for participation in the online survey previously extended to early December has been pushed back to Monday.
"Our response rate was still a bit down," said Dee Dee Dodson, member of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional Board of Education and chair of its Ad Hoc Survey Committee. "We thought it would be appropriate to extend the survey over the holidays. Previously, many high school seniors were busy trying to make college application deadlines. We thought over the break they’d have more time to participate, the same with parents and teachers."
The survey, which the school board authorized in September, seeks to gain opinions from parents, students, teachers and alumni on the strengths and weaknesses of the district.
Ms. Dodson said currently the survey committee is having the toughest time contacting alumni.
"We should have had a better system in place to find graduates," she said. "Right now we’re mostly relying on word of mouth. We really need to get the word out so more alumni take part."
International Communications Research, a market research company in Media, Pa., is conducting the Web-based survey and follow-up telephone interviews.
Extending the deadline until Monday pushes back the timing for a final report on the survey by ICR as well, Ms. Dodson said.
Originally, ICR was expected to report back to the school board on the survey sometime in late December or early January. Now a report to the board is unlikely any earlier than February, Ms. Dodson said.
"We’ll have a final report in the next couple of months," she said. "This does throw off our schedule somewhat. We still want to be done before the school board gets involved in the budget, though."
Ms. Dodson also stressed that extending the deadline does not put the survey over budget.
"We are still within our budget," she said. "It costs very little for ICR to keep its Web site going and we’ve taken some cost-cutting measures like having survey committee members and volunteers code the responses to open-ended questions."
If you have forgotten your password for the online survey, have questions or concerns about participating, are a graduate of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District or know a graduate to contact, call Gerri Hutner, district spokeswoman, by phone at (609) 716-5046 or by e-mail at [email protected].

