Four Lessons Voters Will Teach You

For nearly 20 years, Perspectives has surveyed thousands of voters as part of our Comprehensive Voter Approval Assessments. While every school district and community is different, there are four lessons you can learn from voters.

Some Voters Will Never Support Your District. There are some voters that will not support anything that your district asks for. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how much it costs, these voters will never support your district. Nearly all of the never voters have had a personal experience with the district which has caused them to oppose all requests from the district. For example, when the district closes a local school in the never voter’s neighborhood – likely a school that they themselves or their children may have attended. Another example is when they feel the district did not provide them or their child with an appropriate educational experience. Never voters typically account for 4 to 7% of all voters.

Voters Care About Timing. Voters who currently have children attending your district are especially sensitive to when facility improvements will be completed. These parents of current students want and need to know when facility improvements will be completed, so they can evaluate if their child will be able to take advantage of these improvements. While you would hope that parents would be supportive of facility improvements whenever they occur, we have found that in some cases parents will not support certain facility improvements because their child will graduate or be in a different school building by the time the improvements are completed.

Voters Struggle to Understand School Funding. It will come as no surprise, but voters have a hard time understanding how schools are funded. Between the different types of funding, such as bonds, sinking funds, foundation allowance, grants, and schools of choice, and then the restrictions on what each funding type can be used for, voters struggle to understand how facility improvements can be funded. Most often, voters are aware of several funding options (but may not fully understand each one) but are unaware of the restrictions for each funding option.

Voters See Things Differently. Not all voters see facility improvements in the same way. For example, some voters will read “New Football Stadium” on your list of facility improvements and picture a football stadium that looks like an NFL team could play there. A typical voter comment on a survey is “We don’t need a stadium that seats 10,000 people. I played on grass and we don’t need a turf field either.” Even facility improvements such as a new elementary school, early childhood center, or signage, which you would think are simple and straight forward, can be misinterpreted by voters. 

Our Comprehensive Voter Approval Assessment helps your district more fully understand voters in your community and identifies issues your district can address to gain their support.