In the not-too-distant past, using surveys to gauge public opinion was a costly and time-consuming activity that districts generally had to outsource. Today, with the advent of online survey tools such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang and an increasingly Internet-connected society, surveys have become a useful and accessible tool for school districts. In the Hilton Central School District in New York, the faculty have used surveys to seek broad input on decisions involving the annual budget and to perform exit polling to better understand the factors that influenced its voters' choices and the information sources they used to make their decisions. One of the most challenging aspects of designing a survey is determining which questions to ask. Thus, the key to an effective survey is a well-focused research objective that can be articulated in a short series of survey questions. Drilling down into some of the demographics helped the district identify gaps in the delivery of its message with segments of its population.