Willis ISD — TX

1. Snapshot

City-Midsize district north of Conroe in Montgomery County, 9,313 students across 12 schools. SAIPE poverty 11.0% (the low end of TX rural-fringe). Demographics 47% White / 39% Hispanic / 9% Black. Per-pupil expenditure $15,088 (FY2020) — above the TX peer median and higher than Frisco’s despite a fraction of the enrollment. Willis is a high-spend district per student, sitting on the I-45 growth corridor between Conroe and Huntsville.

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

A modest, owner-heavy community with above-national income and below-national home values — meaning Willis homeowners pay property tax directly, have high voter turnout in bond elections, and feel each cent of tax-rate change. The 82.5% owner-occupied share is the single most important number here: it’s 15+ points higher than national, meaning bond debt service is felt by nearly every voting household directly, not absorbed by landlords. This is precisely the demographic that rejects athletics-only bond packages.

3. Peer comparison

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

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

Willis ISD’s data tells a story the bond campaign chose not to tell:

• Plant operations: $1,042.50 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — 21% below median, but the peer median ($1,035) is essentially the same. Willis isn’t unusually under-investing in facilities by peer-group standards.
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $34.3M — substantial in absolute terms (peer Medina Valley spent <$2M; East Central spent $749K). Willis has already been spending on capital. So the bond ask wasn’t “we’ve been deferred — help us catch up.” It was “we want three more buildings on top of what we’ve already built.”
• Per-pupil instruction $5,321.24 — the lowest of the entire peer comparison set ($5,116-$9,889 range). Spending is going to administration, plant, and capital — not to the classroom. This is the data the opposition would have highlighted if they’d looked.
• Chronic absenteeism 23.1%, suspension 14.4% — middle-of-the-peer-pack but worse than Holiday or peer-mean for similar enrollment.
• Willis HS 30.3% absenteeism, 18.2% suspension, 54 expulsions — flagship school with significant climate concerns. The campaign’s stadium/activity-center pitch implicitly argued “athletics solves engagement”; the data argues something different.

The core problem: Willis ran a bond comprised entirely of athletics, activities, and aquatics. Zero classroom dollars, zero instructional facility upgrades, zero safety/security. In a community where the May 2024 bond had already passed Prop D (the one classroom-coded item) and failed A/B/C, the November re-run of the same three failed items was a near-perfect predictor of failure: voters had already told the district twice in six months they wouldn’t fund these specific items.

5. Bond history (Ballotpedia + news)

• May 2024: $218.1M bond, 4 props — Prop D passed (classroom/facility), Props A/B/C failed (activity center, stadium, aquatic center)
• Nov 2024: $115.4M bond, same 3 failed props resubmitted at lower price tags — all failed again, ~54-57% No

This is the most diagnostic bond history in the entire failed-bonds list. Willis ISD voters did not reject the district — they specifically rejected athletics/activities propositions, twice, while approving the classroom proposition the first time. Re-running the rejected items 6 months later without restructuring the asks was a campaign strategy choice that ignored a clear voter signal.

6. What voters / opposition actually said

Limited public opposition messaging in coverage — like Saginaw Township’s quiet rejection, this looks like organized skepticism rather than activism:

• Willis ISD school board president Kyle Hoegemeyer (post-vote statement): “While we are disappointed that the community did not approve this bond, we respect and appreciate the voice of our voters that showed in larger numbers.”
• Vote tallies were unusually high-turnout for a school bond — ~24,000-25,000 ballots per proposition, suggesting motivated voters on both sides, not low-info no-shows.
• Texas Scorecard (conservative-leaning) framing: “voters split” coverage emphasized that activities/athletics asks face structural skepticism in suburban TX 2024-2025 — Mansfield’s Props C/D/E (stadium, performing arts) failed in May 2024, Cleburne’s HS stadium ask failed May 2025, Willis A/B/C failed twice.

7. What we could have told them

1. “We are not asking voters to fund more athletic facilities. We are asking to fund the schools where students who play sports also learn. Here’s what Willis HS — 30% absenteeism, 18% suspension — needs structurally.” A district with a 30% absenteeism flagship can’t lead a bond with a stadium pitch; the activity center has to be reframed as student-engagement infrastructure with a measurable outcome (counselor space, mental-health rooms, intervention areas — not just a gym).
2. “Willis spends less per student on instruction than every peer district. The next bond will fund classrooms first, then activities.” Splits the political coalition: classroom-supporters and athletic-supporters can both vote yes.
3. “Per-school facility condition by campus: here’s where we are.” Willis HS is 2,809 students in one building — the largest HS in the peer set. Capacity data + condition scores per building would defuse the “we already spent $34M on capital” objection.
4. De-couple the three asks (Single-prop wraparounds rather than three separate athletic asks). Voters voted nearly identical no margins (54-57%) on all three — meaning the same coalition voted no on everything. The single biggest structural fix is to drop the athletic asks and re-bond around classroom + safety/security only.
5. Wait at least 12 months before the next ask. May 2024 → Nov 2024 was 6 months — too short to reset voter perceptions after two losses on the same questions.

8. FMX outreach hook

Willis is a textbook mid-market FMX prospect: 12 buildings, an Asst Supt of HR & Operations who is the entire facilities leadership ladder, and a board that just learned the same expensive lesson twice. Lead with Robert Whitman (Asst Supt of HR & Operations): he’s the operations leader, no Director of Facilities is listed, and the next bond — whatever it asks — will need his data and his signature. Opener: “New Braunfels ISD is your closest peer in our benchmarking — same enrollment, same locale, same per-pupil. They run facility ops with measurable resolution times and per-square-foot cost tracking. After two losses in six months on the same three propositions, the May 2026 ask (whenever it happens) will need to come from a different posture: ‘here’s the building condition by campus’ rather than ‘here’s what we want to build.’ FMX gives you that posture inside 60 days, and the redacted CA/OR peers in our dataset are likely current customers we can reference.” Whitman wears the HR hat too, so the FMX value proposition can ride staff-time-savings as a secondary frame — appealing to a generalist exec leading both functions. Pricing: mid-market, 12 buildings, fast implementation.