Join us for an illuminating discussion on CMBA's effective K12 bond approach as we sit down with seasoned architect Courtney Koch, alongside Chief Marketing Officer Kristi Ploen, and special guest, Dan Barkel, the visionary Superintendent from MMCRU schools. Together, they delve into the art of bond promotion and share remarkable success stories, particularly focusing on the recent, triumphant MMCRU school district bond campaign that benefited from CMBA Architects' invaluable assistance.
Skyler: Welcome to another episode of Laying the Foundation. Welcome everybody to another episode of Laying the Foundation podcast. It's me again, skyler, kind of the host of the episodes, and today I am joined with Courtney. Courtney, this is like your third time being on an episode, which is awesome.
Courtney: It is, and I love being here because we have such great conversations.
Skyler: Good, good, awesome. And I'm also with Christy, who's new to the podcast being on it at least, but definitely not new to the involvement of it, for sure and she is our chief marketing officer for CNBA. Hi Skyler, happy to be here. And then, of course, we have our phenomenal first guest ever on the podcast. We have Dan Barkle. Dan, welcome to the show, thank you, it's great to be here, Skyler. And.
Dan: I feel honored to be invited.
Skyler: Yeah, absolutely, and it's exciting to have our first guest and super glad it could be you. So first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself who you are, what you do and I guess, how we kind of are involved with you. Okay.
Dan: Well, I'm currently the superintendent at MMCRU schools and I actually am a shared superintendent between two different districts. I serve the Marcus Meriden-Cleghorn district which encompasses the towns of Marcus Meriden and Cleghorn, iowa, and then I also serve the Remsen Union district which encompasses the town basically of Remsen and basically we are whole grade sharing between two districts.
The districts are adjacent to each other and so yeah, it makes for interesting dynamics, with two different boards and two different schools, two different staffs, some of whom are shared between buildings, but sometimes it makes it a little complicated, but it's also always interesting.
Skyler: It kind of keeps things exciting. Every day is different, I'm sure.
Skyler: Yes, exactly, fantastic. So today what we're talking about is bond promotion. And real quick, before I jump into your experience with bond promotion, first of all as somebody from outside of the process, what exactly is a bond? What's kind of the definition? For anybody else out there that's listening, that's like. So what does that mean? Before we go too deep into it, I don't know. Courtney, do you want to maybe share a little bit about what a bond is?
Courtney: Yeah, absolutely, and most of our education projects that we've worked on, a bond is necessary in order to support the project financially. So, asking the community for their support in the project, to levy their tax dollars in order to support these community projects. You see general obligation bonds in a lot of different civic projects as well city halls, fire stations but you also see it in all of our public education sector as well. So, being able to have that community support to pay for the bond in order to be able to build new facilities and keep the schools and communities.
Skyler: Awesome, awesome. The funding process, Absolutely Okay. Very cool, very cool. So, Dan, you've been involved a couple of times in the bond promotion process. Could you tell us a little bit about your experience within that?
Dan: Well, we have gone through it twice in the Marcus Meridan-Cleghorn district and the first time we were unsuccessful because, as many of you know, you need to reach the threshold of % in the state of. Iowa. We fell a few percentage points shy of that the first time around, but then the second time around, which I believe was about a year and a half later maybe it's honestly, I can't quite remember, but about a year and a half later we were successful with passing the bond and there were a few things that we did differently in order to reach that point, but it was very successful for us and because of that, we are now in the midst, with the help of CMBA, to we are building a new elementary school, we are building a new daycare which is part of the elementary school, and then we are also completely remodeling, really from the ground up, the high school.
So it's pretty extensive, but we are super excited about what's going on in that town of Marcus, that's awesome.
Skyler: That's very cool. That is a lot. Yes, as you said, that is a lot, very cool. So what would you say kind of defines the difference between the two times that you did this the bidding promotion or the bond promotions? What made the second time? Do you or do you have any insight on what you feel made the second time more successful?
Dan: Well, to be fair, I was really quite green in the whole public school manner of doing things, because the bulk of my experience prior to coming to MMCRU was in the private school.
So I mean, it was obvious when I first walked into the building at MMC that we needed a lot of help with our facilities, and I also knew that the district had undergone a lot of what do I want to say? Negative returns over the previous years, a lot of enrollment decline. And my thing was, if we were going to have a chance to survive and hopefully thrive and grow, we needed to do something in order to attract students and families to our district. So for us it involved, you know, getting together with cmba early, having them do a site study of our facility, and then, once we got to the point where we felt comfortable with floating a bond issue, we went through the entire process of promoting it. And you know. But but I'll be honest, I was very green with it. Sure, we it was sort of like, okay, we're gonna shoot the moon and see how it goes. And you know, even though we shot the moon, we came very close the first time around right right.
We, honestly, were more successful than I even thought we would be and so, with some modifications, with some changes, with some, you know, some changing some wrinkles about how we promoted it with the help of cmba, we were able to pass at the second time. I think a critical part of it was being more focused and intentional with how we did our marketing, sure, and also getting community members involved a lot more in terms of promoting the need For a new facility and and, honestly, getting out the vote. Getting out those voters that we felt would be positive was really key to getting getting over % in order to pass the bond okay, alright, very cool.
Skyler: So, and Courtney, I don't know if you want to kind of run this one, but, dan, feel free to jump in at any point what is the process of sort of putting together this bond promotion and then the actual promotion, or or pitch, or whatever you want to call it that you guys go through both from cmba site and from from those involved in the school?
Courtney: Yeah, and, like Dan said, we started very early on looking at that overall master plan what was necessary for the district in order to be able to move forward in education in all of their facilities and what could the community support.
And I know Dan alluded to it on the first time around that we had some additional things in the scope that we refined when we move forward the second time so in the first time around we had heard Some voices that had wanted gymnasium, an additional gymnasium, and as we dug more into it after the first failed attempt, we learned that maybe the gymnasium was not as Imperative to the project as other pieces. Like Dan said, the daycare was a very big component of this project that Can propel that ahead on the second time around. So being able to identify what was gonna be most crucial for the community as part of that planning process and then being able to package that up so that the community knew where the district stood, what was needed to move it forward and how we could get there with the dollars that we were seeking as part of that process to was also educating the community in what we were selling virtually and being able to show how that would impact students at the elementary level as well as the high school level and help the community.
When there was a daycare crisis in this opportunity, we knew that being able to provide daycare as part of the school would also keep parents in the community With the jobs that they had and already create those young learners that would stay with the school throughout their entire career and being able to build on that, really gain that momentum the second time around.
Like Dan said, having those voices there, having those community members to support it and help sell that process, was a huge piece in that. In that component. Also, having the right toolkit and that's where our director of marketing, christie, comes in is being able to create a strategy with an owner to have the right tools in place in order to do that promotion. Being able to have Access to all of the information in a one stop shop. You have a website available that has everything that a voter would need to look up their own impact and that is really where it starts is what's my impact as a community member, and being able to find how that's gonna impact me is very important. We also help put together those flyers and those boards in order to have the message be consistent and then create a calendar of events that need to go out to the public, whether it's on social media or open houses or being able to even tour facilities to see what the state is of the district and how we can advance that.
Skyler: Sure awesome. It's quite a product, yeah, bringing all the information to the people, to the community, being able to kind of find those needs within the community. How do we do that specific part? Because every community is gonna be a bit different, so how do we like hone in on each community and say these are the things that they're looking for, so these are the things that we need to include as part of our plan.
Courtney: Absolutely. When we start the process, we look at what the community needs are and in m m c's case specifically, that day care crisis was a huge component of what was happening in the community and being able to help offset that and provide resources became one of our number one reasons to move forward with an option to include a daycare in the facility. We listen to those community members, send out surveys to be able to get input of what's going to be most important to those community members, as well as listen to the faculty and staff at the school and know what's going to make that the best project for them in where those deficiencies are and what they're missing in their facilities as they currently stand.
Dan: Definitely, you look like you had something you wanted to throw in there well, no, I was just gonna say I see NBA was really instrumental in helping us find out what the needs are in the community and refining those needs and then helping us connect with people that have an interest in improving our facilities.
And you know, I was especially curious when, you know, not curious but interested when she talked about the daycare.
You know, for us in our school district, the daycare is really, for us, a feeder program for the school.
We're not up and running yet but we will be, you know, by January of . And so you know, I envision, especially because we have this daycare shortage in our area, that we will not have a problem filling spots in the daycare and the great thing for us will be okay if you like your experience in the daycare and you like the way in which you know you can drop off your kids, so on and so forth, because we'll have fantastic facilities for that. If you want to continue the experience at Marcus Elementary, you can just, you know, go right up the hallway and that's where your child will go for preschool and for TK and kindergarten and so on. Yeah, so for us, especially in rural Iowa where we have to compete for every student. It's really important for us to hit the ground with daycare in order to keep the numbers at our school. So it's integral to maintaining our school in our community and, because we have a school in our community, maintaining and hopefully growing business and industry and the population of our community.
Skyler: Absolutely. They start in the daycare, they move to the elementary, they move to the high school and then from there they either, you know, go off to college and then hopefully come back start a family process repeats, or they jump into the workforce within your community and the process repeats. Right, very cool.
Dan: And, as you say that, because another piece of our project is in addition to our already fantastic industrial technology program. It's awesome and we use that program very intentionally to grow business and industry in our community because we want to have graduates that can get jobs in our community so we can continue to grow our community and hopefully also grow our school.
Skyler: Very cool, very cool process for sure.
Ad: Attention architecture professionals, are you looking for an employment opportunity that will provide you with a wonderful work culture and a competitive pay rate? Look no further than CMBA Architects. Our firm offers flexible scheduling, a casual dress code and a great work environment that will help you collaborate and create. Plus, who doesn't love having Fridays off?
Skyler: To learn more about our available positions, visit the careers page at cmbaarchitectscom and apply to join the CMBA team. I'm sure that, and maybe I'm kind of jumping a little bit with the points that Courtney gave me beforehand, but every community is going to have kind of a story of their development, of their growth and so on and so forth. How do we use that story to kind of put into the bond promotion to kind of help sell that project?
Courtney: I think, just like Dan said, what's important to that community needs to be represented in the projects that are going to happen. So, just like the daycare, just like the career technical education pieces, those were huge components to the community that they could get behind and rally support behind because it in turn keeps their community going. And even as part of the process hearing from community members creating those task force groups that were put together, we learned what those specific needs were and what they were looking for to grow the program. It wasn't just that the community needed a daycare or wanted to continue growing in career ed. It was what specific pieces fed the Marcus community and that would be similar to every other district, of what specific to that community is going to be the point that's going to kind of drive that project.
Skyler: Right, right, absolutely. Now jumping back a little bit to something that Courtney mentioned before, where you're getting the word out to people and maybe Christy has something that she wants to throw in for that but between the promotional materials, the social media, all of that kind of stuff, what kind of goes into that process and what does that process look like?
Kristi: So we work alongside, obviously, the district, the superintendent. A lot of times their board members are part of the committee, or at least a couple of them.
Skyler: Oh, okay, definitely community members.
Kristi: We're kind of working with them along the process all the way. But it's really, you know, to what Courtney had said. It's really kind of going back and trying to kind of develop that story and really help educate the public on the why, the need. You know, yes, it's important to them what it's going to cost them, what's in it for them all of that. But you have to kind of step back and make sure that initially they just even understand why we're doing this and how it's going to benefit the community, how it's going to benefit the students, and even to what dance that you know, how it's going to continue to kind of grow and let that district thrive.
Skyler: Absolutely Awesome. And then from there, I mean, is there probably like different strategies based on the community of how to communicate with them? I'm sure maybe, like you know, one community might not be big enough to have like a local newspaper to put stuff, information into, or kind of growing up in the Midwest Sometimes technologically we're not quite at the same spot that you know people on the coasts are, or something along those lines. How do we kind of pinpoint how we want to reach the community and with the various tools and resources that we have?
Kristi: Yeah, part of developing that strategy is, you know, working with the district to kind of identify their demographics. Play a lot into it the community members and the superintendent, dan, for instance, at MMC they kind of knew and had identified some of those community events, the ways to get out flyers, be involved in some of those activities. You know, younger families in districts are tending to go more to social media to get information versus a newspaper Right. So just making sure that that message is out there consistently but making sure that it's in multiple places. So no matter how you're going out and getting your information, you feel informed. You don't feel that you were overlooked or unheard. Okay.
Dan: Yeah, you know I'd like to chime in there. You know, christy does an outstanding job of creating materials that, first of all, have a lot of validity in the community. I mean, it's very they're. They look very classy, they look very professional and I think also I want to just kind of chime in also on the part that we wanted to make sure that the message we were sending was consistent, but also I believe also in what she said that the use of social media was extremely key in reaching people.
I mean not only throughout the bond process but we also find just with school communication in general, social media is the best outlet that we can use to get the word out for things and and I think CNBA did a great job of utilizing those and helping us pass the bond with the materials that they were using that we could use on social media.
Skyler: Awesome, awesome, yeah, somebody involved in marketing. I'm always, you know, curious about what that process looks like. So definitely that's fantastic. So how many sort of presentations along the way are part of the process when you meet with the community? Or is it like one big kind of final when they go to vote or whatever the case?
Courtney: So most of the times in in at least all of the education projects that we've been working on lately being able to have those community touch points where you can go and have an open house environment that people can come in. We see that if we have a couple of different options available, that we can reach across the board.
Like Kristi said, people get information differently. We also know that there's different groups that meet at different times. Dan met with some coffee clubs and different groups that were easy to get in front of when they were meeting on their schedule, but then we also had planned meetings that you know parents could come to, also in conjunction with school activities.
Dan: Yeah, you know, it was basically run like a political campaign. I mean we had specific meetings that were scheduled that you could attend if you want. I'm not going to say it was a rally, but we gave a lot of information there.
But then also, you know, I went on the stump. I mean, I went out and visited with various community groups. We, you know, went to whatever clubs there were. We went and met with the senior citizen club. We went to different clubs from our other communities besides Marcus. We went to Clegg Horne, for instance, and met with some folks there. But then also, you know, we took the effort with the materials we had from CNBA and we had a whole group of people that were motivated and we went door to door through the entire communities and just shared with them. Hey, this, this, this the bond election is coming up. This we think this is really important for our community. Here are some materials that you can take a look at. We just want to encourage you to vote on whenever it was. And so again, just making the effort to connect with people while at the same time, we are very intentional and strategic in how we hit people, as it were, with social media, sure, sure.
Kristi: And I think Dan makes a great point that you know the materials and some of the assistance that we offer is great in terms of getting the message out and that consistency. But the true kind of promotion and really the success of the bond comes down to a district and a team that's willing to kind of get out there and work Right. Right, they needed to hear from Dan. They trust Dan. They needed to know that the district was in support of what they were putting out there. So it's not just as simple, as you know, handing off some flyers on a website. There's a lot more involved to kind of that strategy behind the communication.
Skyler: Yeah, absolutely. Anybody can kind of be the face on a commercial for whatever. But it's about having that like direct contact with somebody within the community that knows the community, that knows the community's needs. That really sells that point for sure.
Courtney: And everybody in the community wants to be involved.
Skyler: Yeah, yeah.
Courtney: You never want to not know what's going on. So even just getting to hear that message and know what's happening gives you that connection to the project. So, as hard as it is running around and meeting with different groups and different people, just having everyone on the same page and excited about what's happening in their community is what gets the bond passed.
Dan: Yeah, I was very fortunate in our communities at MMC and RU that people even though there is always some negativity out there, I was very fortunate to be able to connect with a large group of people that really want to see our community succeed and want us to thrive and grow. And you know, with the material we got from CMBA, with the guidance we got from CMBA, we were able to harness those people and get the word out and help us have a future in our rural communities and that's just getting the feeling of opportunity and positivity out.
There was huge for us to be able to accomplish what we did Awesome.
Skyler: Yeah, absolutely being able to really foster that desire for that change, even though change is scary and a lot of people feel that way, but just letting them know this is going to better us and getting them to support it Awesome. One of the topics that we had kind of talked to. It's been on everybody's mind, honestly, as of late, because it's so recent and big. As a firm with three locations in Iowa and as the schools we mentioned, which are in Iowa, we recently had some new rules passed about bond elections within Iowa, and so I don't know if, courtney, you want to talk a little bit about what that looks like moving forward with the bond promotion process.
Courtney: Yeah, so in the state of Iowa, every school district now that we're going to be working with has one opportunity to run a bond election, and that change is what we've known, because in the past we've had fall and spring opportunities. But now that we're looking at one time of year, we need to make sure that we're planning ahead so that we're ready for those times when November gets here, so that we're not losing time waiting for the next election or planning too late to be able to run an election, but be cognizant of what we're working towards, to make sure that we're always prepared for that.
Skyler: There's a part of it. That's kind of nice that you can almost like pre-planned explicitly when you're allowed to do it. But yeah, the kind of fear of got to do it all all at one time, maybe a bit of a drawback on that end, I guess.
Dan: And I think, with the new rules going into place, I think the marketing of how you go about passing the bond is going to be that much more critical, absolutely, and I think having resources like CNBA to help you with that is going to be even more critical than what it has been in the past, because it's going to be I'm not going to lie I think it's going to be a little bit more challenging in the state of Iowa to pass a bond. So, choosing which year you choose to do it and making sure that you get the word out and are going door to door or hitting folks with social media or having meetings with people, I think it's going to be even that much more important.
Skyler: Yes, I completely agree. That makes a lot of sense. It's really got to hit hard on the information and getting that out to the community leading up to that date. So awesome, awesome. So, courtney, you're involved in the bond process even outside of the MCC schools, with a lot of different projects that you're involved with. When you close or successfully pass the bond promotion, what is that process like?
Courtney: Well, it's exciting for all of us because bond election days are very nerve wracking. But with every client I've worked with and if you've worked with me, you know my routine is if you know it's passed, you send me an a donut emoji a text, and I know that I'm bringing donuts for my entire team at the office the next day because we're celebrating a big win, absolutely, absolutely.
Skyler: That's fantastic. And then where does it kind of go from there? Once we get the donuts at the office and everything's been passed, like, what's the process, what's the next step? I guess.
Courtney: We are ready to move forward. It's a really exciting day for all of us. We reach out to the owner and celebrate what hard work has been done over the last few months to get to this point, and then we're ready to hit the ground running with the next steps in the project of getting it put on paper and designed and ready to be built.
Skyler: Awesome, yeah, big sigh relief. You finally did it. All the work that you guys have put in kind of led up to this moment and it worked.
Courtney: That's right, and maybe a few nights of sleep first. Oh sure, yeah, we're ready to tackle it the next day.
Skyler: Absolutely awesome. Well, I think I've kind of hit the end of the list of thoughts and questions, but if there's anything else that you guys want to mention from your expertise, from your past experience, Well, my past experience with CMBA, both in a private school setting, where I was for most of my career, and also in a public school setting, has been very, very positive.
Dan: First of all, I'm sort of a aesthetic type person. I mean, I have my career my background was in music and in art and so that part of it appeals to me and I love the design that CMBA brings forth. But really what I love about CMBA more than anything else are the people, and the people really makes it work and makes it extremely enjoyable to work with, and in fact I'll be kind of sad when the whole process is over with because then I won't see the folks as often.
But you know, CMBA is just an incredible firm to work with and I have nothing but the highest regard for them.
Skyler: Wow, well, we appreciate that and we'll definitely have to have you on for another podcast episode so that you can see us again afterwards.
So we won't let you just fade off into the distance. So awesome, well, fantastic, um. Thank you all for being here on this episode. Really appreciate it. Dan, coming down all the way to uh, to our office to be on, that's fantastic. Really appreciate that. Courtney, for being on again this is your third time, so we'll see how many more we get in the future, courtney. Courtney currently has the what top score on being on the podcast episode so far.
Courtney: So I'm excited to be here. Anytime you let me in this chair.
Skyler: I'm here, you got. It Sounds good. And then, of course, christy, thanks for being on as well. Um, this has been another episode of laying the foundation podcast. Thank you all for listening. We really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to listen to the show. We hope that the information that you heard today is beneficial, moving forward and formative.
Um, of course, if you enjoy the show, you can definitely make sure to subscribe and follow us on anywhere that podcast can be found, whether that be Apple podcast, spotify, Google podcasts and everywhere else that they're streamed. Of course, you can check us out on social media, whether that be Facebook, instagram, linkedin and Twitter. You can see all kinds of pictures from our projects and things that we've done in the past. Um, once we get really jump into the this project with Dan and the M M C school district sorry about that, that's okay Um, well, you'll definitely be able to see some of the pictures and stuff for that as the progress moves forward, which is really exciting. And, of course, you can head on over to our website, cmbaarchitectscom, and you can check out a lot of the projects that we worked on there as well, and I'm sure pictures and updates from this project will also be there as well. So thank you again for listening. This has been another episode of laying the foundation.