Checklist: Planning for School Referendum Success

When it comes to funding schools, community members are generally supportive. For instance, in Wisconsin’s elections this past April, voters approved nearly $770 million in additional funding for the state’s school districts, voting in favor of three quarters of all the district referendum questions. That said, school referendum questions regarding borrowing for construction and renovation projects tend to have slightly lower approval ratings, averaging around 61%.

When considering financing a construction or renovation project through a school bond, your district’s goal shouldn’t merely be for that referendum to pass. Your aim should be to build such a strong level of support and trust in your proposed project’s ability to positively impact the community that voters overwhelmingly support your school referendum question. While there’s no exact science to referendum success, there are certainly steps you can take to improve the chances that your school bond measure will pass.

Start Strategically: Tie Your Project Back to Your Strategic Plan

Within their strategic plans, most districts include an objective that pertains to fostering and achieving student engagement. Many times this is talked about in terms of the overall school culture, which we know is directly impacted by the conditions of the physical spaces surrounding students and teachers on a daily basis. So when we talk about school construction or renovation projects, it’s important to demonstrate that the project is a natural extension of the district’s strategic plan to achieve that mission. You’re not just building; you’re helping to build a culture that impacts student achievement and engagement and helps teacher retention, all while fulfilling your district’s mission.

The clearer and stronger connections that you can identify between your school construction project and the objectives laid out in your strategic plan, the easier time you’ll have demonstrating a true need for the project you’re proposing, as well as clearly demonstrating the potential for tangible, beneficial outcomes.

Build a Team: Create a Facilities Planning Committee

Once you’ve established that your school construction or renovation project directly supports one of your district’s strategic planning objectives, the next step is to assemble a committee to lead the facilities planning process. While your superintendent and school board will certainly be pivotal in supporting your referendum and driving the project forward, your district facilities committee should represent the entirety of your community. This group will lead the “master planning” process and will ultimately deliver a plan outlining how the district can best meet their facilities’ needs to the board of education.

A strong committee should include a broad range of perspectives, including participants who may be naturally inclined to support a facilities improvement project, as well as those who may be naturally predisposed to oppose such a project. We’ve found that having people who tend to oppose facility improvement projects in general – and the corresponding tax increases that the improvements may well require – on your committee will help you develop a plan that really focuses on producing tangible outcomes. These people will also give your committee insight into concerns shared by others in the community, helping you know how to address those concerns when communicating with the public during a public information campaign should you elect to pursue a school referendum.

Your committee should also represent a diversity of backgrounds and experience. The strongest facility committees we’ve worked with have included business leaders and other influencers in the community, school board members, teachers, parents, and even students. Engaging committee members with diverse backgrounds and experiences who have leverage in your community will be critical to your communication success when it’s time to go to the polls.