Aurora (Colorado) public schools followed 10 suggestions to win a recent bond election, including starting a year before the election, analyzing community relations, establishing a citizens' committee and an election task force, developing resource materials (including fact sheets), setting a timetable, seeking out "yes" votes, and…

A Colorado school district attracted over 2,000 volunteers to work on a winning campaign for a mill increase to make up for a $7 million shortfall in state funds. Offers 10 key lessons along with pointers for putting them to work in other school districts. (MLF)

This paper lists 12 common errors by school officials that can contribute to the failure of school finance elections and briefly discusses each of the errors in turn. These campaign errors include (1) disagreement by school board members over whether or not to hold a financial election, (2) failure to analyze community attitudes before launching a…

Kansas City residents were questioned about their attitudes toward education, the school district, schools in their neighborhood, educational expenditures, and voter behavior. Some comparative conclusions were drawn based on responses of people outside the Kansas City, Missouri School District; data from this survey was also compared with a 1970…

This booklet deals with ideas, plans, and activities that have worked to gain election successes; and it discusses the pitfalls and problems that have produced election failures. The report tells how to organize people and jobs, and provides a timetable for actions during the last 12 weeks of a campaign. The authors suggest that most successful…

The general thrust of this report is to examine the impact of school closures on the following clusters of variables: population and land use trends--including changes in age structure, birthrates, racial composition, social and economic characteristics, demolitions and new structures, and occupancy rates in residential and commercial structures;…

Discusses the viability of participatory democracy and representative democracy for educational decision-making and argues that pure representative democracy would be preferable to the combination of participatory and representative democracy that now predominates. (Available from the Kansas Association of School Boards, 825 Western, Topeka, KS…

Discusses the impact of the youth vote on school elections and the finance proposals necessary to support schools. (RK)

Points up the need to run school district accounting along the lines of a multimillion dollar business. Criticizes lack of encouragement for managers to economize on budgets, lack of employee incentive programs, and regulations which make it difficult to dismiss nonproductive employees. A questionnaire assists administrators to detect flaws in…

Inflation has affected school construction through cost increases, defeated bond issues, fewer buildings and additions, and steep interest rates. Explains how dwindling construction money is being spent. (KJ)

Recounts how the school district alienated the voters and how it won them back. (IRT)

Describes how the Denver Public School District used detailed planning and precise fiscal management to build 10 schools rather than just the 9 approved by voters in a bond issue, as well as to renovate 22 other schools. (EV)

A rural Wisconsin school district passed a $5.5 million referendum package on the first try. Credit is given to a 20-minute video edited by a volunteer school-board member. The amateurish, homemade effort did not seem to hurt the video's effectiveness. An address is given to obtain a copy of the video. (MLF)

After years of struggling with increasing student enrollments, the Elk Grove Unified School District (Sacramento County, California) conducted two $70 million bond elections to supplement State funding for new schools, improve existing schools, and provide transportation and student support facilities. The 1986 election failed with 64.8 percent…