Case Study: Urbana School District #116 achieves actionable stakeholder insights and meets Illinois engagement mandates with ThoughtExchange

Meeting engagement mandates with more useful data

Urbana School District #116 in Illinois needed to meet state-mandated annual stakeholder engagement requirements but found traditional closed-ended surveys produced grouped results that weren’t actionable. Superintendent Dr. Donald Owen sought a qualitative, open-ended approach to capture richer context and clearer priorities from families, staff and community members.

The district used Thoughtexchange’s open-ended platform, engaging 1,204 participants who shared 3,128 thoughts and cast 82,227 stars. The transparent, searchable results surfaced unexpected priorities (for example, elementary physical education), increased buy-in and communication, and drove immediate actions—school improvement plans and public celebrations—while saving staff time with rapid, customizable analysis and reporting.

Urbana School District #116

Donald Owen

Superintendent