Tight timeline for community survey

CLINTONVILLE – The Clintonville School District will be working on a tight deadline if it wants to send a survey to all district households to measure the interest residents have in a possible referendum question on the ballot for the April election.
That was the message that Daren Sievers, project manager at School Perceptions, relayed the board at its Sept. 22 meeting. With that message, Sievers said School Perceptions still had enough time to get a community survey sent out this fall. The board had previously approved hiring School Perceptions to do a survey for the district.
Sievers told the board that School Perceptions has helped more than 1,300 school districts “navigate strategic planning and referendum planning.”
He said the reasons for doing a community survey would be to educate community members about the needs of the district, gather data to understand the district’s community members’ educational and financial priorities, establish a tax dollar associated with potential projects or operational referendum, and to decide if or when a referendum should take place.
“The bottom line is, with community surveys, people are more likely to support a plan that you put on the ballot if they understand the plan and if they have a voice in creating the plan through their feedback,” Sievers said. “It keeps you from guessing about what your community would support and would not support.”

Every household in the Clintonville School District would be mailed a survey, Sievers said.
He added that the surveys would be anonymous, as the residents’ name would not be asked for.

Timeline
Sievers said it takes School Perceptions four to six weeks to write a survey. Once it is written it takes eight weeks to get it printed, get it out to the community and let them complete the survey, and then process the results.
Since the Clintonville School District would want residents to complete the surveys this fall, Sievers acknowledged the survey would need to be written in less than four to six weeks.

For the district’s survey, Sievers said School Perceptions could get a survey written by the end of October. The hope would be for district households to receive the survey during the second week of November so surveys could be returned by the end of November. The results of the survey would then be presented to the Clintonville School Board at its December board meeting.
“So that you can then decide if you have enough support for the questions you asked, to proceed with a resolution written by one of those law firms you talked about earlier, where they would put a ballot question on the ballot for April if you’re so inclined,” Sievers said. “This timeline would align very nicely with an April ballot question.”
If the board felt April was too soon for a referendum ballot question, Sievers said the district could wait and then start working with School Perceptions in February in anticipation of a ballot question on the ballot for theelection in November.
“We always urge districts to survey six months ahead of their vote,” Sievers said.

Board discussion

Board Treasurer Jason Moder asked if the survey would also go to businesses in the community.
Sievers said School Perceptions would obtain a mailing list from the district, and a survey would go to every address on the mailing list. He added that if a business owner fills out the survey, but the business owner is not a resident in the district, those survey results would be “filtered out” of the overall survey results.
“We are measuring on your behalf, voter feedback, not every address feedback,” Sievers said. “…We are really trying to focus on voters.”
Board President Glen Drew Lundt asked if the board would see the results from the surveys of non-district residents.
Sievers said that information could be shared with the board.
Clintonville Superintendent Troy Kuhn asked if the district would be rushing too much to prepare a survey for a possible April referendum question.
Sievers said School Perceptions could get a survey done for a possible April referendum question.
But he added, “If there is going to be a lot of board debate and the board wants to review multiple drafts before they are comfortable before it goes to print, this could be a bit of a start late date. It could be a bit too late.”