The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Superintendent wonders how to engage community in school-upkeep conversation

DAYTON – The Columbia County Auditor's Office counted 61 additional ballots last Friday, but the new results don't show much change for the Dayton School District's $800,000 capital improvement levy. The proposal now trails by 23 votes out of 1,160 cast, a slightly larger difference than was reported after the initial count last Tuesday when results trailed by 21 votes.

This election requires a simple majority, or 50 percent approval. Currently 49.01 percent of voters have approved; 50.99 disapprove. The remaining five ballots will be counted and the election certified on May 12; additional mailed ballots may be added to that total. Voters appear decidedly split on this measure, whereas 72 percent of voters last spring rejected the district's bond measure requesting $20 million for a comprehensive campus modernization project.

The school board reacted to that defeat with a much smaller request – a levy to address safety, security and efficiency needs including entry and exit doors, a remodel of the front wall of the gym entryway, roof projects, updates for the phone and other communication systems, irrigation system for watering district grounds and athletic facilities, repairs to the elementary asphalt playground and roof, and campus-wide sidewalk repairs.

"One concern I have is, man if we don't figure this out pretty soon, we could end up with a huge crises," Dayton Superintendent Doug Johnson said Friday. "What if the roof fails, for example, and we have to get a loan. I don't know if people understand how much it costs for the interest on that. Or just this past week – we had two little kids trip and fall on the cracked asphalt at the playground. One little girl fell and really scratched up her cheek."

The district has an obligation, Johnson said, to plan for the worst. "But we try to put that on the back burner and hope for the best," he said. "We just have to find a way to get information out of people. How do we engage the public in at least a conversation in what they will support or why they won't support what we've brought forward? I'm at a loss for how to do that.

"I know they're telling me they're not going to support a tax, but we need to understand why. We can then either try to provide information that might help them change their mind. Or maybe they have ideas that change how we do things."

Parent and community participation in this conversation has been low. The district tried to conduct a survey in the fall, after the first bond "failed miserably," Johnson said. But only seven people mailed in a response. Public turnout at workshops, presentations, meetings and open houses to discuss bonds and levies in the past year has been a dozen or so at best – and usually the same group of people.

And it's not just a lack of engagement with the levy or bond issue. The district mailed out a survey in April unrelated to funding, just requesting feedback from parents on how the district is doing. Only about 16 were mailed back; Johnson doesn't yet know how many participated in the online version of the survey.

"I think that there are people who are generally in support of things, and they assume it's ok to not tell us anything – 'oh they know we support them,' but even then it would be great if they told us why, why do they support us so we know? Do they support wood shop, ag shop, sports? And it might not be that at all, they might support us because of food service. If you let us know when we plan this stuff, we can try to be accommodating," Johnson said.

"I'm just concerned about the district as a whole," he said. "I think that things are worse than what many people think they are. But we can't get them to engage in the conversation or come and look for themselves or talk about how damaging it could be if in the middle of the school year we had to fix something catastrophic."