Clintonville district residents will be surveyed
By Bert Lehman
Residents in the Clintonville School District will soon have the opportunity to provide input into the future of Rexford-Longfellow Elementary School.
The Elementary Facilities Task Force met earlier this month to work on finalizing the survey that will be mailed to all district residents in September.
Prior to task force members viewing a draft of the survey, Craig Uhlenbrauck, vice president, education & commercial for Miron, told the members that the results of the survey will tell the task force what the community is willing to support financially.
Bill Foster, president of School Perceptions of Slinger, the company that assembled the survey, told task force members that the goal is to educate residents.
“People are more likely to support something that they understand,” Foster said. “If they understand the process we’re going through and what the options are, even if they don’t take the survey, we believe there’s a benefit to that.”
Residents will be able to return the survey via a business reply envelope, or they can take it online. Foster said around 70 percent will fill out the survey online.
He added that typically 18 to 20 percent of the surveys are returned.
“Our experience is, once you hit around 400 responses, from a statistical standpoint it locks in and it doesn’t change,” Foster said.
Foster said the plan is to get the survey to district residents the middle of September. The deadline to reply to the survey is scheduled to be Oct. 10.
It was stressed by Foster that individual survey answers are confidential.
The final results of the survey will be released at the Oct. 24 school board meeting, Foster said. The results will also be available on the district’s website.
Foster went through the entire survey with task force members to get their opinions.
The survey draft included three options for residents to choose from, as far as what to do with the Rexford-Longfellow Elementary School. Each option included a total cost for the option as well as the impact the option would have on residents’ taxes. By the end of the meeting, it was decided to limit the survey to two options.
“What I want to be able to do is come back to the group and say remodel or build new, which way,” Foster said. “I want to be able to take the group one way or the other. If it’s build new it’s pretty easy. If it’s remodel, then we have another decision point — 1918 yes or no. I’d like to be able to give you data on that.”
The task force is scheduled to meet Wednesday, Aug. 31 to finalize the survey copy.