Cleburne ISD — TX

1. Snapshot

Town-Fringe district in Johnson County (south of Fort Worth/Mansfield), 6,877 students across 11 schools + 1 alt program. SAIPE poverty 11.0%, demographics 45% Hispanic / 43% White / 4% Black. Per-pupil expenditure $11,966 — near the bottom of the peer set (Joshua $11,505, Weatherford $11,646). Cleburne is a workforce community — large Hispanic population, lower bachelor’s+ rate, modest home values. The two failed elementary schools (Cooke, Gerard) had 501 and 474 students respectively — together ~14% of district enrollment.

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

This is the lowest-wealth, lowest-education TX community in this brief set — closer in profile to Pittsburg ISD or rural East TX than to its closest geographic neighbors (Mansfield $109K HHI, Northwest $116K, Weatherford $77K). A $165M ask in a community with sub-$178K median home values translates to real annual household impact. Combining a school-replacement prop ($137.6M) with a stadium prop ($27.4M) on the same ballot — when the Mansfield C/D/E result a year prior (May 2024, same DFW metro) had just demonstrated voters’ willingness to reject athletics — was a structural miscalculation.

3. Peer comparison

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

4+ redacted “Peer District” entries (MO, AZ, OH) — likely FMX customers across multiple states. Joshua ISD next door is the most actionable named reference.

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

• Plant operations: $1,187.93 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — 10% below national, peer-median (peer median $1,174). Mid-pack — not a screaming gap.
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $3.2M across 12 schools — ~$267K/school/year. Better than Bridgeport’s zero, but still below what’s needed for major replacements. The Cooke/Gerard replacement case rests on building age & condition, not on a “you’ve been spending nothing” narrative.
• Per-pupil instruction $6,362.30 — middle of peer range (Joshua $6,706, Weatherford $6,385). No instructional under-investment story.
• The case for new buildings has to be made on building condition, not on aggregated finance data — and Cleburne’s data doesn’t make that case loudly. School-level data does:
• Chronic absenteeism districtwide 20.2% (Texas state average ~14% in this era) — second-highest in the peer set after Lancaster SC.
• Cleburne HS: 26.9% chronic absenteeism, 26.6% suspension — a 1,849-student high school running very high suspension. Building condition + program intensity correlation worth pulling.
• Lowell Smith Jr Intermediate (grades 5-6, 958 students): 20.3% absenteeism, 28.2% suspension — high enough to be a building-environment signal.
• TEAM SCH alt program: 97% absenteeism — outlier, alt schools always look bad in this data, set aside.
• 11 of 12 schools have a nurse (good); counselor ratio 406 average (mid-pack).
• Demographics — the Hispanic-majority shift (45% Hispanic, 43% White) plus 20.9% non-English households means campaign messaging in English-only is leaving ~1 in 5 households out of the loop. This is a turnout-targeting and translation issue separate from data.

5. Bond history (Ballotpedia + news)

• May 2025: $165M two-prop bond, both Props A & B failed (specific percentages not published — described as “narrow” rejection in WFAA reporting).
• Nov 2025: District returned to ballot with revised $232M three-prop package — Prop A grew to $175M (larger Marti expansion vs the May version), restructured into 3 props for ballot discrimination. (Outcome of Nov 2025 vote not in the cohort source — separate followup needed.)
• This expansion of the ask after rejection is structurally unusual (most districts scale down — Saginaw Township went $243M → $169M → $94M). Cleburne went $165M → $232M.

6. What voters / opposition actually said

Published reporting on the May 2025 result was thin — Cleburne Times-Review’s coverage was pre-vote (“CISD calls for $165M bond”); post-vote reporting was bundled into broader North TX roundups. No specific voter quotes or organized opposition campaign published.

The post-vote committee work — “Facility Advisory Committee met to re-evaluate the bond package after the May 2025 bond vote” — and the resulting expansion to $232M for Nov 2025 suggests the district read the May failure as “we didn’t ask for enough to actually solve the problem” rather than “we asked for too much.” That’s a defensible read if the building-condition data supports it; it’s a risky read if voters were saying “show us what’s actually broken before you ask for more.”

7. What we could have told them

Cleburne’s pattern — fail at $165M, return at $232M — is the bond-strategy bet that clear data on building condition will overpower sticker shock. That bet is only winnable with documentation. Specifically:

1. Don’t combine school replacement and stadium on the same ballot. Mansfield May 2024 (one year earlier, same DFW metro) demonstrated voters in this region will reject athletics while approving instruction. Cleburne went binary on a 2-prop where Prop B was the stadium; the Nov 2025 3-prop structure is the correction.
2. Cooke Elementary and Gerard Elementary need their own documentation packets. These are 380- and 474-student PK-4 buildings. Square footage, age, HVAC age, roof age, ADA-compliance gaps, structural reports — the level of specificity that lets voters answer “would I want my own child in this building?”
3. The chronic absenteeism data at Cleburne HS (27%) and Lowell Smith Jr (20%) is the campaign’s strongest non-financial number. Building-condition correlates with attendance; pair the bond with attendance data per building.
4. Per-pupil-instruction $6,362 is mid-pack — the Cleburne case is genuinely about buildings, not classroom investment. That’s actually a clean campaign frame: “We’re not asking to spend more on teaching — that’s at peer-median. We’re asking for replacement buildings for two 50-year-old elementaries.” The data supports this; the May 2025 campaign didn’t lead with it.
5. Translate everything. 20.9% non-English households in a Hispanic-majority district where the elections are conducted in English-first is a turnout problem.

8. FMX outreach hook

Cleburne is mid-quality outreach — the bond pipeline is active (May 2025 → Nov 2025 → likely 2026 if Nov fails), the operations org is sized for it (CFO Sarah Taylor + Exec Director of Ops Shawn Shockler are both named roles, suggesting structure), but the wealth band is lower than Mansfield/Northwest. Lead with Shawn Shockler (Exec Director of Operations) — he’s the right title to own the data infrastructure, not the CFO. Opener: “You went $165M to $232M between May and November 2025. That’s a bet on more documentation, not less. Joshua ISD next door [if customer] / a peer district at your enrollment band [if redacted peer match available] is benchmarking per-building condition scores in FMX so their next bond ask is line-itemed. Cooke and Gerard need their own packets — at 380 and 474 students, voters are being asked to fund two specific building replacements and they deserve building-specific data.” The redacted MO/AZ/OH peer hits suggest there are FMX customers at this enrollment band — confirm. The pitch should center on prop-level bond defensibility (since Cleburne is multi-prop going forward and Mansfield’s May 2024 result proved voters reward props that are well-documented).