Bond fallout: Plan B or square one?

Following a thumping at the polls, the St. Joseph School District is all ears.

There’s no harm in asking what went wrong after 53% of voters rejected a $157 million bond proposal to build a new high school south of U.S. Highway 36. The district, in a survey posted on social media, seeks feedback on why voters opposed the measure, where they get their information and what would increase their support for a future high school bond issue.

The survey, however, didn’t seem to ask the most important question: Do you support, either through new construction or renovation of existing facilities, the district’s goal of consolidating to a two-high school model?

If the answer to that question is no, then the district might be absorbing plenty of disappointing election results in the future. The Board of Education has the authority to close a high school if it’s in the public interest to do so. But the board needs community buy-in because voters control the purse strings.

Given the results in April, there’s no guarantee voters will support “Plan B” – a proposal to renovate Lafayette and Central and convert Benton into a middle school -- even if it’s a no-tax increase bond. That’s the issue that should keep the board up at night. 

Some look at low turnout and blame voters for lack of engagement. Only 24% of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot in the April election. 

This is a fair point, although it overlooks recent history. No one complained in 2012 when 25% of voters turned out to approve a bond issue to build two new elementary schools. That measure passed with 65% support – possibly a high point for the district given all the troubles that followed. 

We agree that turnout should have been higher, but we disagree with throwing it back on voters because that’s a recipe for further disappointment. In 2025, the biggest problem for the district isn’t that too many people stayed home. It’s that the district didn’t give them a reason to show up.

In the future, the people you need to convince are not going to be sitting in the latest Vision Forward meeting and they aren’t going to be the ones with “no” signs in their yards. Their minds are made up.

After all these Vision Forward meetings, it’s disheartening that the district is no closer to knowing what the public wants and the public is no closer to understanding what the district needs.