Abstract
Despite the relatively large number of papers that have been devoted to examining parental preferences in international context, there is no general consensus on what the most important for parents when choosing a school is. Usually parents value academic results, socio-economic composition of the students, communication and engagement in school life, classes with fewer students, shared values and teaching style.
The aim of this paper is to describe the characteristics of a good school from the perspective of Czech parents using data collected in a longitudinal survey CLoSE from a representative sample of 2,008 parents of preschool children and compare information obtained through open-ended and close-ended questions using the methods of content analysis and descriptive statistics. Parents expect that a school will provide their children and also themselves with personalized solutions focused not only on good academic results, but also on the best possible quality of life and that the school will enable them to participate in shaping the schooling of their children.