The school district is planning numerous ways to communicate about the upcoming September 2018 referendum with the community.
While summer vacation is quickly approaching for students and teachers in Cherry Hill Public Schools, the work on Cherry Hill Public Schools 2020: A Clear Vision for the Future is just beginning for administrators and the board of education.
The board’s strategic planning committee and school administrators discussed Cherry Hill 2020, plans for a bond referendum in September 2018 and a communication plan moving forward during a meeting last Tuesday.
Superintendent Joe Meloche and committee members discussed an initial communication plan for how the district will discuss its future strategic plan and bond referendum over the next 16 months. The school district is planning to hold a bond referendum on Sept. 25, 2018, to pay for a number of large projects.
Meloche said the district is shooting for the September date for a number of reasons. The district is planning for a referendum in 2018 as it will be paying off the remainder of its existing debt in early 2019. Meloche felt having the referendum at the start of the school year will put it at the forefront of many residents’ minds and also believes the district didn’t want to hold the referendum during the only other available date in the fall, the 2018 general election.
“We don’t want it to get lost in everything else that’s being voted on at that time,” Meloche said.
Leading up to the September 2018 referendum, the district is planning to hold community events and release a slew of information explaining the reasons behind the referendum and eventually detailing the projects.
“The objective of the communication plan is so everyone knows what it is we need to do and how we do it,” Meloche said.
The district needs to submit a list of projects for the referendum in early 2018 to the state Department of Education. For the remainder of 2017, the district plans to solicit input from community members and discover what projects it wants to include in a referendum and how much the referendum will cost.
The district plans to have officials at community meetings and numerous school events in the fall. A list of dates should be available sometime in mid-August.
“Any place that I can get a group of people in the same room together, I want to go talk to them,” Meloche said.
Once a proposed bond referendum is put together in early 2018, the district plans to break down each of its components and explain it in great detail to the community. A webpage dedicated to the referendum will be created, and Meloche said he wants school officials to meet with as many school and township organizations as possible to talk about the referendum. The district also plans to hold a voter registration drive leading up to the election.
The strategic planning committee discussed having a display in each school building explaining how the referendum will affect each community.
“We want people to see what does it mean for the high schools,” Meloche said. “What does it mean for the middle schools. What does it mean for the elementary schools.”
The board plans to discuss specific referendum projects in greater detail this summer and into the fall.
Visit www.chclc.org/board-of-education/2020-vision for more information on Cherry Hill Public Schools 2020.
