Citizens in the Issaquah School District have a long history of supporting their schools. During the “Boeing Recession” of the l970s, however, school levies all over the state failed in l976 and 1977.

Issaquah was no exception. Levies then needed 60 percent to pass. Though more than 50 percent of Issaquah district’s voters voted yes, the levies failed.

After two failures in a row, teachers and administrators were riffed, class sizes rose, music programs, electives, sports, and school libraries suffered cutbacks, grounds maintenance fell to the PTAs, and book purchases were on hold.

Our community was determined not to have a third year of levy failure. Volunteers for Issaquah Schools (VIS), “The Levy Folks”, turned from a small group into a full-bore community operation.

In the 1970s, school levy elections took place every year; levies for periods of two, three or four years were not legal until after 1982. Yearly levy votes meant that advanced planning, long-term goals and stable funding were difficult.

In 1978, to expand VIS, each school was asked to send at least one volunteer as a school representative to weekly VIS meetings. I represented Clark Elementary.

VIS hired a professional election consultant; Montgomery Johnson, a well-known advisor to many campaigns (usually Republican) began attending VIS sessions, held every Monday evening in a meeting room above a Front Street bank. “Gummy” Johnson drew an action plan; community volunteers and school representatives each had specific tasks. Public relations and fundraising were the biggest concerns.

With a smaller business core and almost no industry — Issaquah’s two biggest employers at that time were Darigold and the School District — corporate donations were small. VIS’s biggest fundraiser was an annual auction, and PTAs and individual contributions made up the rest of VIS funds.

The PR team for VIS set out to get public support from as many individuals and organizations as possible, to make non-support of the levy unacceptable. Groups and individuals worked to get signatures for a full-page newspaper ad. Signature sheets circulated at almost all public gatherings.

A signature sheet was brought to the Issaquah City Council; every minister in the district was contacted; firefighters, police, businesses, doctors, dentists, seniors, community service groups, Chamber of Commerce members — if you were on a list, you got a call. If you agreed, your name went in the ad. Usually, the same contact asked you to take an election sign.

Signs were a chore. To lower costs, 500 signs were silk-screened by hand, by the VIS sign committee. A huge wood silk-screen frame was hauled out of someone’s garage. Signs were screened in their driveway and dried in the yard.

The next weekend, the committee staple-gunned signs to stakes and distributed them to “sign pounders.” Twelve huge plywood signs were dragged out of someone else’s garage and assembled at intersections throughout the district. VIS contacted every business in ISD which had a billboard, asking them to put up “Vote Schools” signs. Businesses put posters in their windows.

VIS in 1978 could only afford to print and mail one brochure per voter. For months, there were handouts at meetings and coffee hours, while parents, staff, and student volunteers door-belled.

On election morning, volunteers went porch to porch — newspaper tube to newspaper tube in the countryside — leafleting “Vote Schools Today.” Leftover leaflets went to parked cars. Sign-wavers went out, too.

The 1978 levy passed! No ISD general operations levy has failed since. (Not every bond has passed, however).

For the 1979 levy, VIS decided they’d learned enough to pass levies without a paid consultant. PR created a new slogan: “Keep Our Schools Rolling,” and the yellow school bus logo, still in use.

Further, in l978 the Issaquah School District organized school budgets in a new way. Each school would form a committee to budget their school’s portion of the levy funds, based on a per-student amount.

Community Centered Budget Building (C2B2) was nearly as big a hit as R2D2. C2B2 committees consisted of volunteer parents and staff. Principals attended to provide information, and each committee chose a chairperson.

Eventually, the common practice became to have a staff member from each grade or department, and a community member from each neighborhood.

To coordinate C2B2 requests between schools, a Feasibility Committee, made up of more volunteers, melded individual school plans into a district-wide levy. Background for individual school requests became the material for VIS handouts.

Schools found that community members with concerns or levy opposition served well as C2B2 or Feasibility Community members. The large doses of detailed budget and curriculum requests made converts.

Over time, more citizens became budget experts.

By the mid 1980s, ISD school board members were asked to make presentations on C2B2 to other school districts and Washington State School Directors Association conferences. Presentations were given at two National School Board Association conventions. Community involvement in budgeting continues to pay off.

Mary Scott is a docent for the Issaquah History Museums. She served on the Issaquah School Board for 20 years.