Thompson School District R2-J — CO

1. Snapshot

City-Small district in Loveland (Larimer County), south of Fort Collins. 14,580 students across 32 schools. SAIPE poverty 9.2%. Demographics 68% White / 24% Hispanic / 5% Multiracial. Per-pupil expenditure $17,764.98 — the highest in the WA/CO/ID cohort outside of single-school Hood Canal. Median household income $91,064, median home value $464,700, 42.5% Bachelor’s+ — second-highest education attainment in the cohort. Per-pupil plant operations: $3,147.28 — by far the highest in the cohort, 138% above national median.

The Thompson data narrative is the inverse of Saginaw Township’s: Saginaw failed because it was under-spending on facilities ($775/pp, 41% below median). Thompson failed despite massively over-spending on plant ops ($3,147/pp, 138% above median). Voters may have looked at TSD’s existing facilities spend and asked: “why do you need $220M more?”

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

This is the most-educated community in the cohort (after Battle Ground’s affluent Clark County). 42.5% have a Bachelor’s+ — voters here scrutinize numbers. Median home value $464,700 means tax capacity is substantial, but property-tax sensitivity is also substantial. A $220M bond on top of TSD’s already-high plant-ops spending was a math conversation with educated voters, and the math didn’t favor it.

3. Peer comparison

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

Two redacted “Peer District” entries in AK and WA — both likely FMX customers and both relevant comparison points. Notably: TSD’s $3,147/pp plant ops is roughly 2× even the highest peer (Fairbanks AK at $2,089). TSD is an outlier on plant-ops spending across the entire peer set.

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

The Thompson data is the most analytically interesting in the cohort — and the hardest to defend on the operations spend:

• Plant operations spending: $3,147.28 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — 138% above national median. Highest in the entire failed-bond cohort. Highest in TSD’s peer set (next is Fairbanks AK at $2,089). The bond materials needed to explain why — was this deferred maintenance catching up? Utility infrastructure? Old building inefficiency? Without the explanation, voters reasonably ask: “you spend $3,147 per kid keeping buildings up; why do you need $220M more?”
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $40.51M — massive, second-only in the cohort. TSD is already an aggressive capital investor.
• Per-pupil instruction $6,472.77 — lowest of any peer. Iowa City IA: $8,116. Laramie WY: $10,560. Natrona WY: $10,398. Fairbanks AK: $11,544. TSD spends nearly twice as much on facilities operations as it does on instruction per student. That ratio is the bond’s biggest obstacle.
• Total instruction:plant-ops ratio at TSD: 2.06× instruction to plant ops. Peer ratios are 5–7×. TSD is wildly off-pattern.
• Chronic absenteeism: 25.1% district-wide — at peer median, not alarming.
• Total nurse FTE: 7.95 across 32 schools — 13 of 35 schools have no nurse. Peer median 18.7 nurses. Fairbanks AK has 21 nurses; Laramie WY has 31.48 nurses. TSD’s nurse coverage is dramatically below all six peers.
• 31 security FTE district-wide — highest in WA/CO/ID cohort outside of the very large Adams 12.
• Several elementaries with high chronic absenteeism: Winona Elementary 54.9%, BF Kitchen Elementary 36.5%, Truscott Elementary 33.5%, Cottonwood Plains Elementary 32.4%, Sarah Milner Elementary 28.4%. The bond was about CTE space and HVAC — but the elementaries with worst attendance weren’t named in materials per Larimer County descriptions.

5. Bond history (Ballotpedia + Larimer County)

• Nov 5, 2024: Issue 5B $220M bond, failed (exact margin not yet retrieved from Larimer County; FOX31 summary indicates the bond was rejected with the operating measure 5A also rejected — both school measures on this ballot failed)
• Ballotpedia indicates Thompson has had multiple prior measures; the 2024 attempt was framed as the comprehensive ask. Like Adams 12, this election was on the same November 2024 ballot where the regional anti-tax mood was widespread.

The CO context: voters in Larimer County on this ballot also rejected county/city tax increases. Thompson is not a campaign-design failure isolated from broader signals — it’s part of the 2024 northern-Colorado tax-rejection cycle.

6. What voters / opposition actually said

No organized opposition coverage in available news. The VoteSmart explainer carried both 5A (operating mill levy) and 5B (bond) descriptions — voters had high information about the ask. With 42.5% bachelor’s+ in this community, the educated-voter scrutiny of the operations-spending pattern is the most likely failure mode: TSD’s high plant-ops + high capital outlay + low instructional spend is a quantitative profile that doesn’t intuitively justify a $220M bond, without a strong narrative for the existing high spend.

7. What we could have told them

1. “We spend $3,147 per student on facilities operations — 138% above the national median, and 50%+ higher than every peer in our set. Voters in this district will ask why. The bond materials needed to lead with the answer: aging buildings with high utility costs, deferred-maintenance catch-up from prior bond cycles, or whatever the actual driver is. Without that answer, the $220M ask doesn’t survive the back-of-napkin math educated voters will run.” This is the most important single message TSD needed and didn’t have.
2. “Per-pupil instruction $6,472 — lowest in our peer set. Per-pupil plant-ops $3,147 — highest. The 2:1 ratio of facilities to instruction is roughly 4× off-pattern from peers. The bond is supposed to fix the capacity of buildings; voters worry it widens the gap between buildings and classroom.” Hard but necessary to defuse.
3. “Winona Elementary 55% chronic absenteeism. BF Kitchen 36%. Truscott 33%. Five of our 30+ elementaries have severe attendance problems — and the bond would have funded the HVAC and safety improvements that condition-affect those specific buildings. Naming the schools and the rates makes the bond a story about kids, not a story about HVAC line items.”
4. “Laramie WY, 55 miles north, has nearly identical enrollment, same locale, same regional economy. Their plant-ops spend is $1,664 — about half of ours. Their bond pitches anchor on the per-building condition score. We need to anchor on something — voters’ default is to read $3,147 plant-ops as ‘they have plenty of money already.’” Direct peer comparison they can verify.
5. “7.95 total nurse FTE across 32 schools. 13 schools have no nurse. Laramie WY has 31 nurses across 39 schools. Natrona WY has 30 nurses across 27 schools. We are the under-staffed district by every comparable metric in our peer set, and the bond could have included health-room space and recruiting infrastructure.”

8. FMX outreach hook

Thompson is the most analytically unusual failure in the cohort: high facilities spend, low instructional spend, low nurse staffing, sophisticated electorate, no clear data narrative. The FMX pitch is not “track your facilities” — they’re already spending heavily on facilities. The pitch is “explain your facilities spend in a way that converts educated voters.”

Best contact: Kristen Battige (Director of Facilities) or Gordon Jones (CFO) — they own the data that explains the $3,147/pp plant-ops number, which is the bond’s single biggest obstacle. The fastest win is connecting their existing high-investment facilities reality to a per-building condition story voters can read.

Opener: “You spend $3,147 per student on plant operations — the highest in your peer set, more than double Laramie County’s $1,664. Whatever the reason for that is, the bond’s $220M ask runs straight into ‘they already have a lot of money for facilities.’ We have several customers in your peer cohort — likely Fairbanks AK and Richland WA per our peer-similarity analysis — who use FMX to put per-building condition data in front of voters. That converts ‘expensive facilities’ into ‘expensive facilities with quantifiable need.’ Without that, the same bond at the same dollar amount runs into the same 2024 result the next cycle.”

Two strong redacted-peer candidates for FMX validation: Fairbanks AK and Richland WA. Both are City-Small City-Small peers with similar enrollment, similar per-pupil spending, and likely FMX customers. Outreach team should validate both — Richland WA is the more rhetorically useful comparison since it’s same state and similar electorate.