This article originally appeared on the Education Market Association ESSENTIALS website and has been posted with permission.
When trust is broken between a community and its school district, it is difficult to be aspirational. Inadequate and failing facilities can be a trust breaker between school districts and the people they serve but it takes money to replace aging facilities and meet growing demands. Before you can move forward, it’s important to work on rebuilding trust and reviving and repairing strained relations.
That was exactly where we found ourselves at The School District of Manawa (Wisconsin). We had big needs, with a significant price tag, but the community had lost trust in the school district–and for good reason. While the current administration had inherited a difficult situation, we were up for the challenge. A successful referendum was imperative to move the district forward.