In 2025, after multiple failed attempts, St. Cloud Area School District 742 secured strong voter approval for a two-question bond referendum designed to address critical safety needs and keep pace with modern workforce-readiness needs at Apollo High School. The district serves a diverse population of nearly 10,000 students covering 250 square miles and has two traditional high schools– Apollo High School, built in 1970, and Tech High School which opened in 2019.
Question one included a secure entrance, storm shelter, fire safety upgrades and upgraded Career and Technical Education (CTE) spaces including health sciences, emergency response, technology and culinary arts. Question two included more space for athletic and recreational activities, based on community feedback.
This referendum followed a successful enrollment campaign that addressed years of declining enrollment and community misperceptions. We partnered with St. Cloud Area Schools on both projects, which led to a seamless transition, weaving key messages from the enrollment campaign into referendum messaging. Through the four-step process, R-PIE (Research, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation), we built on the enrollment campaign which reframed the narrative and rebuilt trust in the community.
This campaign demonstrates how strategic communication, rooted in community engagement with a foundation of trust, can deliver measurable outcomes in complex and divided communities.
This campaign was recognized with a Golden Achievement Award from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA).
* Question 1 was required to pass for Question 2 to be approved
We drew much of our research from the enrollment campaign we just finished, including community dynamics and potential challenges. We researched the district’s referendum history and voter trends.
We defined campaign objectives and identified voter turnout targets.
Our communications strategies maximized voter awareness and engagement, including multilingual and equity strategies to engage all voters in the district.
The campaign was implemented over a 16-week period following a phased approach. We used visual storytelling to communicate complex information, and district leaders held more than 90 in-person presentations.
The special election produced strong results with anticipated low voter turnout, validating the messaging strategy and outreach plan.
Question 1 passed with 62.1% of the vote, and question 2 passed with 54.3%.
We identified key messages from the enrollment campaign that supported the referendum messaging:
We wove these key messages into the referendum campaign for a seamless transition between the two campaigns.
Campaign Brand:
Building Brighter Futures: A Vision for Future-Ready Student Success
Message Pillars:
Six Consistent pillars were used across communication materials. Each communication reinforced at least two pillars.
Messaging was pre-tested internally and refined for clarity and simplicity. During the planning phase, we started identifying key campaign visuals we would need to create or gather.
Planning ahead of this campaign’s implementation phase, we created a video to set the stage for the referendum request: a Tech High School video to show what state-of-the-art facilities, intentionally designed for career and technical education, made possible for students.
We leaned into video storytelling as a key component of this campaign. In addition to the Tech High School video, we created a referendum overview video and five social cuts. We worked with district leaders to source submitted video for three videos focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, and added eye-catching, thematic graphics.
The overview video laid out the two-question request, referendum history, and current realities inside of Apollo High School. The social cuts strategically targeted campaign messaging in bite-sized videos.
Click here to view the St. Cloud referendum playlist on YouTube
We created a variety of materials to reach voters in many different ways and quickly explain the referendum in a scannable format. These materials included a fast facts sheet, mailed post card, an outdoor banner to hang at district buildings, posters for each school entrance, a business card leave behind for door knocking, a-frame signs for drop off lines, slides for digital signage at school entrances, and more.
We created a social media content calendar with dates, captions, suggested platforms, and downloadable graphics. This made it easy to plan our social media strategy and send large quantities of content to the district for batch scheduling. We created voting countdown videos utilizing motion graphics, which were posted to the district's stories toward the end of the campaign.
We created a comprehensive slide deck explaining the referendum questions, referendum history, and tax rate comparisons to other districts. District leadership delivered the referendum message at more than 90 in-person community events. This was a key to informing and engaging voters, leading to the success of the campaign.
Read the full NSPRA award submission for this campaign, or check out more strategic communications projects on our Case Studies page.
