Jamestown board reviews referendum survey, pauses plans and orders deeper analysis

The Jamestown Public School Board reviewed results of a community survey on June 5 and decided not to move forward immediately with an initial resolution calling a referendum on proposed elementary-school construction, instead directing staff to analyze open-ended survey comments and send findings to the facilities committee and to schedule a board retreat for further planning.

Darren Sievers, project manager with School Perceptions, presented the survey and its methodology. “I’m excited to show you your survey results,” Sievers said as he began the presentation. He told the board the survey closed May 26 and collected 1,173 responses, a 14.1% response rate with a calculated statistical margin of error of 2.92%.

The survey tested two facility options and attached tax-impact estimates. Option 1 (a $23,000,000 plan) projected 43.2% voter support after the company’s weighting; Option 2 (a $29,000,000 plan) projected about 31.6% support, each with a plus-or-minus margin of roughly 2–3 percentage points. Sievers said the vendor used a conservative approach that counted all “not sure” responses as no in the projection, which lowers the company’s estimates. He also noted that employees and parents were overrepresented in responses and would be reweighted for voter projections.

School Perceptions’ analysis showed 97% of respondents said they were residents and thus eligible to vote; 14% of respondents identified as employees (while employees constitute under 1% of eligible voters) and 39% identified as parents (while parents make up about 20% of eligible voters in district census data), measures the company said it would correct when projecting voter behavior. Sievers said respondents favored printed mailings and the local paper, the Jamestown Sun, as preferred communications channels for district information.

Sievers and board members discussed how undecided voters might break and how North Dakota’s supermajority requirement affects strategy. Sievers said the company’s historical models are conservative post‑COVID and that, because North Dakota requires a roughly 60% supermajority for passage, the board faces an “extra challenging” hurdle to reach passage in the near term.

Kyle Kovami of ICON, the district’s project partner, told the board that the neutral segment of respondents is a potential target for outreach: “If I’m thinking of the low-hanging fruit, it’s how do we get a third of your community engaged, informed, and feeling like they have some sort of opinion one way or the other about the school,” Kovami said.

Board members voiced similar caution. One board member summarized the discussion by saying the survey suggests the timing is not right. The board directed staff to provide an analysis of the hundreds of open-ended comments (including a suggested frequency/theme analysis), to forward the results to the facilities committee for deeper review, and to schedule a retreat to develop communication and outreach plans before deciding whether to pursue any resolution or election.

The board did not pass an initial resolution calling a special election at the June 5 meeting. Members said the comments and neutral responses give some leverage points for communication work but that more study is needed before asking voters for tax increases.

Next steps identified by board members and staff included: a theme analysis of the comment field, further municipal- and demographic-level breakdowns of support, outreach planning that emphasizes how district funds are currently used, and follow-up questions to the vendor as needed. The board set no specific date for a referendum and agreed to reconvene the facilities committee and plan a retreat to digest the new reports and recommendations.