Districts share tips from successful bond campaigns

On March second, more than 60 California schools and school districts sent bond measures before voters. Of those, 46 were approved by voters heading to the polls. Anyone who has lived through a bond campaign can attest to the time, effort and creativity that go into selling a community on the need for additional taxes. Here, three school districts share tips from their successful campaigns.

Saddleback Valley Unified School District
Comments from Jerry Gross, Superintendent and Laura Ott, Assistant to the Superintendent
Enrollment: 35,400
Bond Amount: $180 million

Q. What will the funds be used for?
A. Half of these funds will be used for modernization and half for new construction according to district personnel. Projects planned include facility and safety improvements, replacing portables with new classrooms, renovation of performing arts complexes at each intermediate/high school, a new stadium/gym, repairs for roofs and plumbing, added parking at each site, field and playground renovation at each site, and new construction.

Q. What actions taken by your school district contributed to the success of your bond measure?
A. First and foremost selecting home grown, well-connected and competent paid coordinators. Then, the list would have to include having cooperative vendors to adequately fund the campaign; having a Board and community in support of the measure; not having formal opposition; getting the Orange County Tax Payers Association to publicly say that our District met their 10 to 12 criteria for putting a bond on the ballot (criteria available upon request); having the Orange County Tax Collector say that our measure met his 5 criteria for putting a bond on the ballot and putting this in writing to us; and making 20,000 telephone calls to gain support for the bond. We also made sure that we had good communication with community through conducting community forums and a non-partisan awareness of need campaign prior to the Board calling for an election.

Q. What is the one thing you want to make sure is done again during your next bond campaign?
A. We need to continue to make sure the community understands our needs. Hold Community Forums, visit site PTA meetings, visit local community groups, and continue with information mailings.

Q. Any other communication tips you'd like to share?
A. When making dozens of presentations to voters through clubs, organizations, etc., be sure to let them know the down sides of the measure. First of all it’s honest and second of all it creates credibility. Finally in other bond measures I've run, I have called in the potential opposition and given them a full run down on the measure, and given them a chance to make suggestions as to terms of the bond, content of the projects. Basically, “hear out” the opposition so they feel that they’ve been given input.

San Bernadino City Unified School District
Comments from Linda Hill, Communications Officer
Enrollment: 58,000
Bond Amount: $140 Million

Q. What will bond funds be used for?
A. New School Construction and Modernization

Q. What actions taken by your school district contributed to the success of your bond?
A. Friends of San Bernardino was formed with a cross representation of Community, Union and District employees.

Q. What is the one thing you want to make sure is done again during the next bond campaign?
A. We’d like to try and get more information out to the employees so they can be informed advocates for the bond.

Q. What, if anything, do you think wasn't worth the time or effort?
A. “Ballot chaser” strategy, yielded few new registered voters.

Clovis Unified School District
Comments from Kelly Avants, Public Information Officer
Enrollment: 34,600
Bond Amount: $168 million

Q. What will bond funds be used for?
A. Here in Clovis, we are embarking on our largest capital facilities plan in the district’s history. Funds from our latest bond measure will be used to build three new elementary schools, our fifth intermediate and high school, buy land for a fourth elementary school, and complete major renovation/modernization projects at many of our campuses. Safety improvements, such as the purchase and installation of exterior security cameras at all of our elementary schools and new door hardware, will also be paid for using bond funds.

Q. What actions taken by your school district contributed to the success of your bond?
A. I think two very important elements contributed to the success of our latest bond campaign: the first was careful financial management by our district, which allowed us to structure the bond repayment in a way that does not increase resident’s current tax rate. Instead, the bond campaign extended our existing tax levy; the second was a strong group of volunteers. This was the fifth bond measure passed in our community since 1986, so a well-oiled team of volunteers was already in place before the Governing Board approved the ballot measure. A community survey conducted during the planning stages of the bond allowed us to get a feel for the information needs of our audience. District employees were active in getting factual information out to our community through presentations to parent committees, civic groups and other organizations. Members of our administration and citizens’ committee met with the editorial boards of our three local newspapers to gain their support.

An information campaign run through our district communications office also provided schools and our parent community with consistent, factual information about the bond measure in the months prior to March 2. This campaign included information ads run in our district’s community newsletter, articles written for use in school newsletters, and a presentation created by the superintendent for use during parent meetings. Volunteers also manned information booths at local malls in the month prior to the election, walked precincts, and made thousands of phone calls to potential ‘yes’ voters on the night before the election.

Q. What is the one thing you want to make sure is done again during the next bond campaign?
A. Continue to cultivate supportive volunteers willing to do a lot of work for free on your campaign!

Q. Any other communication tips you'd like to share on your bond campaign?
A. Be prepared to get factual information out into the community and to not ignore opposition. In our case, we had one candidate for the local assembly district who was vocally opposed to our bond measure. Even after meeting with district officials to clarify some misinformation this individual was putting out in the public domain, his campaign continued to print and disseminate misleading information about our bond measure. Rather than respond specifically to this candidate’s allegations we made a point of getting accurate information out to our local media outlets, civic groups and parent community.

Always remember that you can’t expect a community to approve a bond measure when they don’t know anything about your schools. Focus on your communication efforts all the time, not just when you have a bond on the ballot. Then, when the next bond election rolls around it will be a lot easier to convince your community you need their support.

Back to newsletter index...

Do you have a story idea for CalSPRA’s E-Connection? If so, contact Kelly Avants, Clovis Unified School District, at (559) 327-9092 or kellyavants@cusd.com.