Shelley Joint School District #60 — ID

1. Snapshot

Town-Fringe district in Shelley, Bingham County (east of Idaho Falls in eastern Idaho). 2,512 students across 7 schools. SAIPE poverty 10.0%. Demographics 82% White / 16% Hispanic / 3% Multiracial — the most homogeneous district in the WA/CO/ID cohort. Per-pupil expenditure $8,262.90 — the lowest in the cohort by far (less than half of TSD’s $17,765 or even East Valley’s $17,056). Median household income $76,512, median home value $308,200, 82.5% owner-occupied (high), 4.78% Gini (high inequality despite low headline numbers).

Idaho’s two-thirds threshold (66.67%) is the constitutional rule — even stricter than Washington’s 60%. Shelley got 35.48% Yes. This isn’t a near-miss like Eastmont; it’s a community-wide rejection by 31 points below threshold. The diagnostic isn’t “the rules killed us” — it’s “the voters said no, and the rules would have killed it even if voters had said yes by simple majority.” Different §7/§8 framing than the WA briefs.

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

This is a high-homeownership, modest-income rural community with notable inequality (0.478 Gini is elevated). The bond’s tax impact — $423 per $100K of assessed value annually — translates to ~$1,300/year on the median home value of $308K, on top of ~$1,000/yr of existing levies estimated. Per Superintendent McLaren: “I’ve had a couple people say, ‘No, it’s too expensive for me. I’m on a fixed income and I just can’t afford it.’” In a community with 82.5% homeownership and a wide income range, the tax-impact concern is genuine and broad-based.

3. Peer comparison

Top peers identified via MCP (default weights + plantOps emphasis) — all small ID/UT town/rural peers:

One redacted “Peer District” entry (OR) likely FMX customer. Notable: Middleton District (same state, same locale) is on the same May 2025 failed-bond night as Shelley. Per Idaho Ed News, three Idaho districts lost bonds that night for $150.5M combined. The Idaho cohort is uniquely structurally constrained — bond passage rates statewide 2020–2024 were 26% (lowest in the nation among states with supermajority requirements).

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

Shelley’s data tells a story very different from the WA cohort:

• Plant operations spending: $600.09 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — Shelley spends 55% below the national median on facilities upkeep. Lowest plant-ops investment in the cohort. This is the Saginaw-Township pattern: under-investment is real and quantifiable.
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $1.16M — modest, but proportional to district size.
• Per-pupil instruction $4,695.28 — by far the lowest in the cohort. Middleton ID peer: $4,091; Preston ID: $4,873; Estacada OR: $4,017. Idaho’s whole funding picture is structurally low compared to WA or CO.
• Per-pupil total $8,263 — less than half of Eastmont’s $17,486 (just one state away). Idaho’s school funding floor is a fraction of Washington’s — and that’s the meta-context for every Idaho bond fight.
• Chronic absenteeism: 9.2% district-wide — the lowest in the WA/CO/ID cohort by a wide margin. Shelley Senior HS: 4.4%; Hobbs Middle: 3.3%. The schools are working; voters know it.
• Total nurse FTE: 1.0 across 7 schools — only the middle school has a nurse. 5 of 6 elementaries/HS without a nurse.
• Teacher certified rate: 99.0% — well above peer median, despite low pay/spending. Shelley is not a teacher-quality story.
• Suspension rate 3.7%, expulsions 0 — extremely low discipline rates.

The Shelley data dilemma: this district is operationally excellent on a shoestring. 9% chronic absenteeism with $4,695/pp instruction and a 99% certified teacher rate is remarkable. The bond was about capacity (overcrowded HS, modular buildings) — and the operational data argues there’s no urgent crisis to fix. Voters can reasonably ask: “the buildings are crowded, but the kids are showing up and learning. Why $78M now?”

5. Bond history (Idaho Ed News + East Idaho News)

• Nov 2023: $67.8M bond, 48% Yes (880 to 938) — first attempt, failed by 19 points below 66.7% threshold
• May 20, 2025: $78.6M bond (10% larger), 35.48% Yes (687 to 1,186) — second attempt, fell another 12 points

Shelley’s second attempt got worse, not better — a 12-point drop in Yes share. The scale-up from $67.8M to $78.6M (and the corresponding higher tax impact) moved voters in the wrong direction. This is the opposite trajectory from Hood Canal WA (56→58%) or East Valley WA (37→55%) — both of which are converging on threshold.

Per Idaho Ed News, Idaho’s statewide bond passage rate 2020–2024 was 26% — the structural baseline for any Idaho bond is “expect to lose.”

6. What voters / opposition actually said

Superintendent McLaren’s quotes capture the most-cited objection: “No, it’s too expensive for me. I’m on a fixed income and I just can’t afford it.” No organized opposition group named in coverage — this is a community-distributed rejection, not a coalition campaign. The Idaho Education News framing was statewide: “A bad night for school bonds: Shelley, Filer and Middleton asks fail.” Three Idaho districts on the same night, same pattern, same demographics. This is Idaho’s structural condition, not Shelley’s specific failure.

7. What we could have told them (caveats below)

The standard playbook is harder to apply in Idaho — the 66.67% threshold combined with statewide 26% historical passage rate means no Idaho bond at this scale is likely to pass without exceptional circumstances. The data-narrative interventions are still useful but the structural ceiling is real.

1. “$600 per student on facilities operations — half the national median. Middleton ID across the state is at $635; Preston ID is at $721. We’re at the bottom of even our same-state peer set. The under-investment story is real and quantifiable, and the bond materials should have led with it.” Strongest single data point Shelley has.
2. “Per-pupil instruction $4,695 — lowest of every peer. We’ve protected the classroom on a tighter budget than anyone else in our peer set. Now the buildings are catching up to us — the HS has eight classrooms in modular buildings, the auditorium is too small to use. That’s the operational case.”
3. “Idaho statewide bond passage is 26%. We’re not failing because of how we ran this campaign; we’re failing because of how Idaho’s constitution treats school capital. The next attempt needs the threshold-aware narrative — appealing to homeowners on fixed incomes with specific dollar-per-day numbers, paired with what the district has already cut to make the budget work.”
4. “9.2% chronic absenteeism — the lowest in our regional cohort. 99% teacher certification. These buildings have great teachers and engaged kids inside. What we don’t have is enough physical space — and only enough physical space. The bond doesn’t change the schools’ culture; it changes the room count.” Defuses the “everything’s fine” perception.
5. “$78.6M bond on 2,512 students = $31,300 per student. North Kitsap WA’s failed $242M / 5,330 students = $45,400/student. Eastmont’s $117M / 5,930 = $19,700/student. Battle Ground’s $87.75M / 12,754 = $6,880/student. Shelley’s per-student ask is high but not extraordinary — the math is just much harder when the threshold is 66.67% instead of 50%.”

8. FMX outreach hook

Shelley’s failure is the most structurally constrained in the cohort. Different §7/§8 framing required than WA/CO. The FMX pitch is not “your next attempt will pass with better data” — Idaho’s 66.67% threshold makes that promise unhonest. The pitch is “if you’re going to keep trying, the next 5–10 years of bond attempts need a data-narrative infrastructure, and you don’t have one.”

Best contact: Doug McLaren (Superintendent) — small district, no listed CFO, McLaren personally owns the next bond campaign. Secondary: Blake Jenson (Operations) — holds the maintenance and facility-condition data.

Opener: “Your bond failed at 35.48% — well below Idaho’s 66.67% threshold. The statewide passage rate is 26%, so this isn’t a Shelley-specific failure. But your trajectory is worse: 48% in 2023, 35% in 2025. You’re moving the wrong direction. The next 3–5 years of bond attempts need a sharper data story than ‘overcrowded high school’ — your operational data is actually your best asset: 9% chronic absenteeism, 99% teacher certification, $600/pp on facilities (half the national median). That’s a ‘we’ve been responsible stewards’ story — but you need the per-building condition data to make it. One of your top-15 peer matches is likely an FMX customer in Oregon — we can validate and walk you through how a small Town-Fringe district uses operational data to support a capital campaign.”

Caveats for the outreach team: - Shelley is a small operations team (Blake Jenson alone on the roster). FMX deployment effort and cost need to fit a sub-3,000-student district. - The realistic next-bond timeline may be 2026 or 2027, paired with a smaller ask (probably back toward the $67.8M range or lower) — not a $78.6M+ ask repeat. - The Idaho 26%-statewide-passage-rate context is the most important honest framing: FMX can sharpen the campaign data, but cannot move Idaho’s constitutional supermajority. - Iris is a separate product context — don’t conflate the operations narrative with anything in the FMX-Iris stack.