Parents with children in Albert Lea Area Schools likely received an email on Wednesday inviting them to share their opinions about the district in a new online questionnaire.

We applaud the district administration for reaching out to parents and the rest of the community for feedback in this new tool.

The questionnaire provides three open-ended questions, and parents and community members have the opportunity to not only voice their concerns, but also those things they appreciate about the district and their child’s school.

We encourage district parents and others to answer the questions and to take advantage of the chance to share your opinions — and do so respectfully. The district has stated comments will not be identified by their author to the public, who will be able to see the other comments made during the next phase of the process. Participants will also be able to identify which comments are most important.

Questions have to be completed by April 17.

We hope the district administration and school board will closely review the comments made in the survey, take note of any common themes and implement suggestions when possible.

This survey is a step in the right direction, and we hope it will be one of many ways the district reaches out to both families in the district and the community.

We look forward to hearing back the results.