Adams 12 Five Star Schools — CO

1. Snapshot

Largest district in the failed-bond cohort by enrollment — Suburb-Large covering Thornton, Northglenn, Broomfield, Westminster, Federal Heights, Brighton in Adams County north of Denver. 34,466 students across 54+ schools. SAIPE poverty 9.5%. Demographics 46% Hispanic / 39% White / 7% Asian / 5% Multiracial / 2% Black. Per-pupil expenditure $14,707 — among the lowest in CO. Median household income $94,898, median home value $459,400, 22.3% non-English households.

The split-ballot result is the most important fact: voters on the same Nov 2024 ballot passed the $830M capital bond (5E) and rejected the $34.5M/year operating mill levy (5D). This is not a bond-failure story at the facilities level — Adams 12 will have $830M in capital funds. The failure is on the operating side: teacher pay, programming, social-emotional staff. The FMX pitch is therefore not “your next bond needs better data” — it’s “you have $830M to spend; help us help you justify it to the same voters who said no to the mill levy.”

2. Why this was a hard sell — community context (ACS)

This is a diverse, middle-income, suburban-Denver community with significant tax capacity. 5E (bond) passed 54-46; 5D (mill levy) failed 43-57. 11-point spread between bond and mill levy on the same ballot, same electorate, same day. Voters distinguished sharply between one-time capital investment and ongoing tax for operations. The 11-point spread is the headline diagnostic.

3. Peer comparison

Top peers identified via MCP (default weights + plantOps emphasis):

One redacted “Peer District” entry (TX) likely indicating FMX customer in Texas. Notably, Spring ISD and Mansfield ISD are both also on the failed-bond list — Adams 12’s peer cohort overlaps with the broader 2024 failed-measure pattern, suggesting district-size and locale-type are themselves predictive.

4. The gap story (what the data would have shown voters)

The Adams 12 facilities data is reasonable; the operations data is where the bond didn’t help:

• Plant operations spending: $1,205.68 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — Adams 12 spends 9% below the national median. With 5E passing and $830M coming in, this gap will close on the capital side. But mill-levy money would have funded operations, where the spending gap is genuine.
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $43.93M — substantial; Adams 12 is not a capital-starved district like Eastmont was on its first attempt.
• Per-pupil instruction $7,100.75 — below peer median ($6,913–$9,943). Olathe KS peer: $8,587. Mansfield TX peer: $5,862. Adams 12 is on the lower end but not the lowest of its peers.
• Total nurse FTE: 7.5 across 54 schools — 46 of 54 schools have no nurse. Olathe KS peer: 63 nurses across 52 schools. Mansfield TX: 47 nurses. SD U-46 IL: 49 nurses. This is the single starkest staffing gap in the WA/CO/ID cohort. Adams 12 has roughly 1/8 the nurse staffing of similar-sized peers. The 5D mill levy would have funded health/support staff — the failure leaves this gap unaddressed.
• Total expulsions: 34 across 54 schools — surprisingly low given the district size; but suspension rate 11.1% is the highest in the cohort outside of TX peers.
• Chronic absenteeism: 30.4% district-wide — high, with severe school-level concentration: Vantage Point alternative school 83% chronic absenteeism, McElwain Elementary 60%, Thornton Middle 68%, Northglenn Middle 71%, Hillcrest Elementary 55%, Northglenn HS 54%.
• Multiple schools above 50% chronic absenteeism — the operational case for the mill levy was social-emotional and intervention staffing, which is the exact mechanism that addresses this. The data and the ask were aligned; the ballot still split.
• Counselor ratio 256:1 — actually better than peer median (366:1). Adams 12 has prioritized counselor staffing already.

5. Ballot history (FOX31 + CBS + Adams 12)

• Nov 5, 2024: 5E bond $830M, passed 54-46
• Nov 5, 2024: 5D mill levy $34.5M/yr, failed 43-57
• The board indicated they would “gather community input about future investment requests and determine whether 2025 or 2026 would be better timing for attempting another override.” Per the official passage statement, the failed override “would have helped reduce our schools’ funding gap” — confirming the underlying funding crunch persists.

The CO context: all measures involving a tax increase in the region (county, city, school district) fell short on the same ballot. This is a regional anti-tax signal as much as an Adams-12-specific one.

6. What voters / opposition actually said

CBS Colorado quoted Dave Lockley, President of District Twelve Educator’s Association: “With that failure, we’re kind of back to the drawing board. A tough season of making tough choices.” Parent Heather Delair: “There’s a lot of kids that need that.” No organized opposition messaging in coverage. The 11-point split between the bond (passed) and the mill levy (failed) is the strongest signal: voters trusted Adams 12 with capital but not with ongoing operational tax. That’s a governance/trust problem at the operations level — and a successful facilities case.

7. What we could have told them (and can still tell them for the next mill levy)

1. “You passed the bond. You rejected the mill levy. The same voters did both. The question for the next attempt is: what makes ongoing operations feel like an investment, not a tax?”
2. “Eight schools have any nurse at all. Forty-six don’t. Olathe KS — our peer-of-peers — has nurses at 49 of 52 schools. Mansfield ISD has them at 46 of 48. SD U-46 IL has them at 54 of 57. We’re an outlier in our own peer set, and the mill levy was the lever for closing that gap.” Single most actionable data point.
3. “$1,205 per student goes to keeping these 54 buildings standing — 9% below the national median. The bond will close the capital gap. But buildings standing isn’t the same as kids inside them having a nurse, a counselor, or a tutor.” Connects the won bond to the lost mill levy.
4. “Chronic absenteeism: 30% district-wide. Vantage Point alternative school: 83%. McElwain Elementary: 60%. Northglenn Middle: 71%. The mill levy would have funded the social-emotional staff that addresses exactly these schools. Naming the schools and the rate together would have made the ask harder to vote no on.”
5. “The bond won. The capital is coming. The operations gap stays open unless we run the mill levy again with a different data narrative — per-school attendance, per-school nurse coverage, per-school counselor ratios — and the work-order/operations data that shows whether the new capital is actually closing the gap.” The next mill levy should be paired with proof of bond-funded improvements.

8. FMX outreach hook

Adams 12 is the cohort’s most unusual case: bond passed, mill levy failed. The FMX pitch is not the standard “your bond failed — here’s how to win the next one.” The pitch is two-part:

1. For the won bond (5E, $830M): “You’ll be deploying $830M in capital over the next several years. Every dollar of that needs a defensible justification trail for the next mill-levy attempt. Districts at your scale who run capital projects without integrated facility-management data finish the bond with no proof of impact. Districts that run capital projects through FMX have per-building before-and-after data they can put in front of voters.”
2. For the failed mill levy (5D, $34.5M/yr): “Your nurse staffing (8 of 54 schools) is the cohort’s worst peer-to-peer gap. Your chronic absenteeism is concentrated in 10–15 specific schools. The mill levy ask was ‘staff pay and programming’ — generic. The next ask needs to be ‘nurses for these 46 schools, counselors for these 12 specific buildings with 50%+ absenteeism, tutors paired with these specific outcomes’ — and that requires the operational data infrastructure to produce that specificity.”

Best contact: Chris Gdowski (Superintendent) — for the strategic conversation about bond execution. Secondary: the COO (role exists, name not on roster — pull from district site) — for the FMX implementation conversation. The COO is also the natural owner of the next mill-levy ask.

Opener: “You won the bond and lost the mill levy by 11 points on the same ballot. That spread is your trust gap, and it’s specifically on the operations side. The $830M will deploy whether you have facilities-management data infrastructure or not — but the next mill levy attempt will run into the same 57% No vote unless you can show per-school outcome improvement. One of your top-5 peer matches is likely an FMX customer in Texas — Spring ISD or Mansfield ISD or both. We’ll confirm which and walk you through how they’re using FMX to justify their own next operational ask.”

Caveat for outreach team: Spring ISD and Mansfield ISD both also have failed measures in 2024 — using them as proof points requires care. The real proof-point peer for Adams 12 might be Olathe KS (passed) or Hoover City AL (similar suburban affluent peer in the bond peer cohort) — whichever is the FMX customer.