Taking Stock of School Bonds

For more than six years, Kit Dunn has been involved in specialized communications and information services for educational institutions. She is an equal partner and the vice president of Ellini & Dunn Communications Services Inc. in Endwell, N.Y. Ms. Dunn manages, plans, and implements all facets of school district information issues, with particular emphasis on community relations for bond referenda and year-round school communications. She manages community research initiatives and the strategic planning and production of diverse communications materials.

Joe De Patta: Can you briefly explain to our readers what services your firm provides?

Kit Dunn: One of the unique aspects about Ellini & Dunn is that we are a full-service communications and marketing firm but we completely focus on education, at this point. We’ve developed a kind of specialized niche for bond issues and referenda. One of the primary goals of our practice, which we think makes a difference, is that we try to come in as a resource to both the school districts and the rest of the professional team with planning for the communications element. We facilitate forums, run focus groups, and do surveying and polling to get the pulse of the community.

JD: Why should a school district hire a firm such as yours? What do you do to help them?

KD: As districts proceed in developing a facility plan to improve their schools, the first step is usually to hire an architect or construction manager. They also should consider professional communications support at that time. It is critical that the community is involved early in the process and a firm like ours, which specializes in this, brings a third party credibility to the process. We can help school districts communicate effectively about what they need and why they need it and give people a clear message about what the district is trying to do.

JD: How soon in the bond process should a district involve your firm?

KD: Our philosophy is, "The earlier the better." The sooner the district taps into the community, the more likely it will succeed at the polls. It’s really that simple. We believe very strongly that you need to engage the community at the beginning, when they start the needs assessment process with the architects. "The earlier the better" could be a year or it could be two years-it depends on the district’s timeline. One of the major mistakes a district makes is to do all its homework without anyone knowing they’ve been doing it.

JD: Can you walk me through what you do once a school district hires you to help get their bond passed?

KD: It’s not really a cookie-cutter system. It depends on the district itself, the community they’re in, the issues they’re facing, what their plan is, and how aggressive or how conservative it may be.

The first step is always to go in just to talk and listen. If they are trying to close an elementary school, for example, and redistrict those children into different schools, we need to have a handle on the amount of communication they’ve had with the community. Are the voters aware of the plan? How much outreach has been done? How did they come to that decision? Things like that.

The first thing is to find where we are-as a team-in the project. How far along is the architect in the design process? Do we need to do research? Is the plan finalized or can we take it out to the community and do a test run? Can we show them the options? We want to float ideas to the community, listen to their responses, and evaluate the information in a way that is more qualitative. Then we can say, "Here are the issues that the community is responding to, but they’re not happy about these other issues." How can we, as the framers of the plan, make it so that, by the time we are at the polls, it is more reflective of what the community wants? That’s a big step.

JD: What are some of your strategies for marketing a project to communities?

KD: The most effective strategy we’ve found is to educate people about the district’s need and involve them in the process. We try to get the districts to listen to input before finalizing a plan. We encourage them to form a committee of community members to help build the plan and make that the foundation for everything else that’s done. Then you can say a community-based committee came to a recommendation and the plan reflects their ideas. That allows the districts to avoid the impression that the board of education is formulating a plan and then handing it down to the voters.

JD: What are your typical challenges?

KD: Definitely lack of community involvement. Districts will think they are involving the community because they have a public board meeting. They’ll say, "The board meetings are public and people can come to the board meetings and the minutes are posted on our Web site. We gave people the opportunity." That just isn’t enough. Lack of involvement is a problem. Districts think they have the pulse of the community, but they don’t. Needs haven’t been clarified and all of the sudden the plans come out of the woodwork.

Boards of education that are divided on issues and don’t strongly support a plan also can be a challenge. If a district itself and the elected representatives of the board are at serious odds with each other and you have two members of a board who are actively campaigning against a project, you get a polarization of the community. Dysfunctional boards make it very difficult to pass bond issues.

JD: What is your philosophy toward bond issues? How do you approach them?

KD: Create a two-way communication early on and keep it consistent. The philosophy we believe in is that districts have a responsibility to their communities to educate and inform residents about what’s being done and why it’s being done. They need to do that effectively so people can make educated decisions at the polls. If there are questions about the operating costs, then we must try to answer those questions to the best of our ability-truthfully and directly. Bringing communities into the process allows the district to hear what people want and how they want it.

JD: How is a bond figure determined?

KD: That depends on a lot of factors. We have very little to do with the finalization of a number. That’s mostly the architect’s and construction management’s expertise.

Some of the things that affect bond amounts are aging schools and special programs. Special education used to be outsourced; now, inclusion is the norm and you have to provide space in the plan. You also have handicapped accessibility issues. ADA is not something that a district can ignore.

Security is changing. We used to put the main office in the middle of the school. They thought it should be central to the school. Now the main office has to be near the front entrance. These things all affect our core facilities and drive our bond issue costs.

JD: Who is your typical client? A large district? Small one? Wealthy? Cash-strapped?

KD: I would not say we have a "typical" client. We have had the opportunity to work with many different types of districts. I’ve worked with some high-end districts with large student populations and advanced student programs in strong metropolitan areas. I’ve also worked with some very rural districts. I worked with one district that had one school, K through 12, in one building with 430 students in it. They had a $7 million bond issue that was impacting their taxes about $35 dollars a year and for that community it was a major issue.

JD: What are some very smart things you’ve seen districts do-or encouraged them to do?

KD: When involving community members, it’s smart to assemble distinct facilities review committees that have a broad range of community "stakeholders." You want representatives from the senior community, from the business community, parents, and adults in the district who don’t have children. You also can have students on the committee, members of the board of education, district staff, administrators, and teachers. It then becomes a community plan and is very effective for getting people out to the polls.

JD: So, the different community groups-seniors, couples with school-age children, people without any children-require very different approaches?

KD: There is no doubt that different groups in a community have specialized interests and needs. The important thing that we bring to districts when we talk to them is to tell them not to stereotype. They can’t jump to the conclusion that a senior citizen is anti-project because it’s not true. It is also not safe to assume that parents will support the bond issue. There’s a lot of baggage out there for parents in their 30s or 40s. For them, school doesn’t seem that far away. They think that if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for their kids. The reality is that schools have changed drastically in the last 15 years.

As you develop a project, you have to have input from all demographic groups. We may have special meetings with the business community, senior groups, athletic organizations, and music and performing arts groups and find out their needs.

JD: What are some of the common mistakes school districts make?

KD: Sometimes the process is simply not effective. They skip strategic steps and go right from "Omigosh, we have an enrollment growth spurt" to "Let’s build a new school." They fail to fully flesh out a plan and then fully communicate when they have done so.

Districts also make the mistake of not providing or presenting alternative options-and that is usually the first thing a critic within the community will use to accuse the board of education when a new plan comes up. "You didn’t look at anything else; this is the only plan you have." Nine out of ten times that isn’t true, a district usually has explored other options but it didn’t articulate the process it used to get to the solution shown to the community. People want to know that a district did its homework and how it got to the final plan.

JD: I’ve read where you say that school districts often back themselves into plans. Can you explain what you mean by that?

KD: What happens a lot when a referendum fails is that districts feel that there is some kind of magic number out there. It is reflective of community sentiment or someone on the board will say, "No matter what, this bond cannot be more than $20 million. If we go more than that, we’ll never pass it." Then they end up having to justify the space they are building within that cost. It takes away the true message that you are trying to build a plan that is in the best interest of your academic needs. You may have special interest groups and special needs groups asking for a music room or expanded computer facilities, and all of the sudden your base cost is at $18 million. Now how do you meet the needs? The process looks ineffective and people will think you did things backwards.

JD: This question may oversimplify the matter, but why do bonds fail? Why do they pass?

KD: It goes back to the same thing I’ve been saying. It’s about community engagement and information sharing. If one of those items is not on board, if the need is not demonstrated and the community hasn’t had the opportunity to provide feedback and be involved, the voters will have their say at the polls.

We have to keep in mind that this is ultimately the voter’s choice. As much as we believe that a particular new high school is the best thing for the community, the community isn’t going to buy it if they haven’t been involved.

JD: If a district’s bond fails, what is the most important "next step" the district-or your firm-needs to take?

KD: A lot of that depends on what our role has been prior to the bond’s defeat. If we’ve only been involved for a very short time, anything under three or four months, and the bond fails, then we have to take a different approach.

The first thing a district needs to do is regroup. A defeated vote is a clear message from the community that something in the plan is not acceptable. We have to find out what that was. People in the community want to see reaction. Even the most ardent critics will say that there is a need, they just didn’t like the solution that was presented to them. At that point, we need to get these people-the critics-involved in the process.

If a bond went down three to one, you shouldn’t just pop a plan back up there; that’s suicide. Districts who do that essentially say to the community, "You didn’t know how you were voting. Let’s give you another chance." Unfortunately, that attitude backfires in most communities. People come back and vote full force and say, "Didn’t you hear us the first time?"

JD: What is a district’s reaction to your firm if a bond you helped them with ultimately fails at the polls?

KD: Sometimes they ask us to help them refine the plan with a very specific strategy. If it’s a long-term plan and we’ve been with the district for a year, we have pretty good radar on it. I’ve never had a bond issue fail that surprised me. We sense it.

We do research with the community and share the research with the board. They may feel we’re being too conservative or too reactionary to the naysayers in the community. Some boards will discount the information and keep moving forward despite our recommendations to possibly hold off.

JD: The country is currently suffering a downturn in the economy. Is that affecting bond passage?

KD: Definitely, there’s no doubt about it. In today’s environment, all public projects that involve a significant tax impact have more difficulty succeeding.

Although the economic realities of the package have to be presented, we have to emphasize that the real focus is on the project’s value to the community. We need to tell them that good schools turn out successful children and are good for property values. We hope that by focusing on academics and the benefits of the plan, people will realize that this is an investment in their children and their community.

JD: Are there some areas of the U.S. that are "hotter" than others? Where are a lot of the bonds passing?

KD: There certainly are hot areas where school construction is exploding. Without a doubt the hottest part right now is the North Central region; Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan. That is where we are seeing an enormous influx of people and the existing schools just can’t handle the capacity. The facilities are outdated and aged. There is a huge amount of construction in those areas.

New Jersey is another one. New York state is sort of on the downside, but there are certain hot areas like the mid-Hudson Valley and upstate Westchester. We’ve seen an exodus from the city, especially since Sept 11, 2001. They are moving to upstate New York, north and west in New Jersey. They are hitting the interstate and just driving.

I’ve been working with a district in New Jersey, focusing on some site issues, and even in a year and a half their projections have exploded. Originally we thought we could build a school for "X" number of students and now it’s gone up by another 150 kids.

Another hot area is the West Coast and the Southwest. Lots of growth. One of the things that frustrates communities is that developers often don’t keep up with infrastructure. Developers keep building homes, but there aren’t enough schools to support the families moving in.

JD: Is it any harder to get a district to pass a bond for an elementary school than it is for a high school?

KD: I think that, in the end, it’s not that significant. What are significant are the factors that go into the plan. When we are talking about an elementary plan, we find that parents and the community are more protective of the students. They are more concerned about transportation, concerned about transitions, they’re very concerned about the level of exposure to different grade levels. Those dynamics affect the ultimate success of a plan.

For example, a lot of districts are struggling with the concept of middle school. Tons of research has shown that a middle school environment is beneficial socially, emotionally, academically, and psychologically for early adolescents. But, where does early adolescence start? Is it fifth grade? Sixth grade? A lot of schools are traditionally K-5 or K-6 and they’re not sure where to make the break. Many academic assessments and programs show that the fifth grade is the natural transition point away from the elementary school environment, in terms of programs. In fifth grade they are starting to be exposed to different languages, higher levels of technology, but a fifth grader, to a lot of parents, is still a little kid.

JD: You’ve mentioned that in past elections you’ve noticed more negative campaigning? How can that trend be explained? Are you noticing any other trends?

KD: In the last year or year-and-a-half we have definitely seen much more organized and aggressive anti-tax campaigns. You have your traditional "No" votes, but now we are seeing young people with children voting against measures. Bond issues are one of the few remaining areas where community members can exercise their right to say "No" and feel they have some power.

Seniors, as a group, are becoming stronger in terms of positives. They are becoming proponents of plans because they see the long-term value and they see the environments that their grandchildren are in.