The State of School-to-Home Communication 2026

Parents and schools often disagree about communication, and rarely in the ways school leaders expect. Most principals assume parents want more information. The data from this survey suggests what parents actually want is different information, sent less frequently, through a smaller number of channels.

This report pulls from original survey data collected across 500+ K-12 schools. It covers the gap between what parents say they want and what schools are currently sending, open rate benchmarks broken down by grade level and school type, and which communication channels parents trust most heading into 2026. The trust rankings are worth reading closely. Email performs differently at the elementary level than at the middle school level. Apps that seemed like the future three years ago are showing different engagement patterns now.

The final section covers two-year predictions for the field, grounded in the data patterns across the survey sample rather than vendor projections.

This report is useful for principals who want to understand whether their current communication approach is working by broader standards, and for district administrators and superintendents who need to make decisions about communication tools and strategy across multiple schools at once.