Streetsboro City Schools — OH (May 2026 update — 4th-consecutive-failure pattern)

1. Snapshot (refer to original brief §1)

See OH-streetsboro-city.md §1. No changes: 1,905 students / 5 schools / 8.4% SAIPE / $14,997 per-pupil / 63% White / 21% Black demographics.

2. Community context (refer to original brief §2)

See OH-streetsboro-city.md §2. Median HHI $77,274 · median home value $177,800 · 31% bachelor’s+ · 69% owner-occupied · low Gini 0.400 · 3.1% non-English household. The “tone-deaf in a $45K-resident community” diagnosis still holds.

3. Community context — what changed since prior brief

Nothing material in ACS. What has changed is the cumulative cuts. Post-Nov-2025 the board authorized cuts to teachers, library aides, secretaries. Post-May-2026 the district announced additional cuts: JV and freshman sports cancelled, all MS sports cancelled, pay-to-play sports fees increased, some arts-related extracurriculars eliminated. The community is now living with the cuts, and the May 5 vote was the first time voters had a chance to reverse them — and 58% still voted No. That is the diagnostic. The cuts did not move voters.

4. The gap story (refer to original brief §4) + FMX peer benchmarks

See OH-streetsboro-city.md §4 for the operational data: - Plant ops $1,135.89/pupil vs $1,324 national (14% below) - Capital outlay FY2020: $21,000 district-wide (effectively zero) - Per-pupil instruction $8,114 - 17 expulsions district-wide (highest in peer set) - 25.4% MS suspension rate - Counselor ratio 317:1

FMX peer operational benchmarks (live)

Pulled live from fmx_profiles — the three FMX-customer peers, all in Ohio, all within 41 miles of Streetsboro at ≥0.92 similarity. These are the strongest in-state, in-region FMX peer comparisons in any district in this 7-brief batch.

Ravenna City at 7 miles, 94% similarity, on FMX is the single tightest peer match in the entire 7-brief batch — same Portage County, direct neighbor, comparable demographics, currently publishing 94.3% work-order resolution inside FMX. Streetsboro voters will recognize Ravenna without explanation.

Niles City at 31 miles, 95% similarity, highest similarity score — also publishing live work-order data.

Poland Local at 41 miles — newly onboarded, portfolio age 71.3 years (older than Streetsboro’s stock), 446K sqft tracked. The Poland onboarding is the proof point that Suburb-Large OH districts in the 1,800-student band are actively choosing FMX.

5. Levy/bond timeline — 4 consecutive defeats in 24 months

Four asks. Four defeats. The district did respond to opposition between Nov 2025 and May 2026 — they moved from a continuing to a 5-year structure (responsive to the “no sunset” criticism in The Portager and WKYC coverage). The 5-year structure did improve the margin — from 64% No (Nov 2025) to 58% No (May 2026), a 6-point swing. That tells us:

• The “continuing levy” reframe converted ~6 points of No voters. Real movement.
• But the structural ceiling on Streetsboro Yes votes is ~42%. The campaign-design lever has now been pulled. Pulling it again won’t yield another 6 points.
• The district moved from continuing to 5-year. The amount went from 5 mills to 7 mills. Voters got more tax, on a shorter term. That trade may itself have neutralized the term-structure improvement.

6. What voters / opposition actually said — May 2026 update

• Rod Flauhaus (WKYC’s named opposition voice, ongoing): Argues 86% of Streetsboro’s operating expenses go to salaries/benefits, vs ~80% Cleveland, 77% Kent, ~90% nearby Aurora. The “salary share” argument is now established opposition framing the district hasn’t refuted. The next ask must address this directly, with a peer-comparison artifact.
• Cynthia Deevers (Superintendent, ongoing): Naming the state-funding-formula problem. “We’re at a cycle right now in the state where I think we’re not alone.” True, but the campaign hasn’t translated the structural argument into voter-facing math.
• News5 Cleveland (May 6 2026): “Streetsboro City Schools faced tough decisions going forward after voters rejected an additional tax levy for the third consecutive time.” The reporting consensus treats this as a structural pattern, not a campaign-design problem.

7. What we could have told them — and what to do differently for the 5th attempt

The prior brief’s recommendations (continuing → 5-year, athletics-cuts-as-leverage critique, peer-named under-investment story) were partially actioned between Nov 2025 and May 2026: - Continuing → 5-year: actioned. Yielded ~6 points. - Mills 5 → 7: actioned (district scaled up in response to deficit math). May have offset the term-structure gain. - Athletics-cuts-as-leverage: escalated, not retired. Post-May-6 cuts are now real, not threatened. The leverage strategy has run its course; voters watched JV/MS sports actually get cancelled and still said No.

The strategic conclusion for the 5th attempt: Stop running the same ask. The recommendations are no longer tactical (better messaging, better peer data) but structural:

1. Split the ballot. A single 7-mill, 5-year operating levy is now the campaign’s albatross — voters have learned to vote against it. Replace with two ballot questions: (a) a smaller operating renewal (3-mill 5-yr), (b) a permanent improvement levy tied specifically to facilities. Lets voters say yes to part.
2. Address Flauhaus directly. The 86%-salaries-and-benefits argument is now a load-bearing opposition narrative. The next campaign must publish the peer-comparison artifact: “yes, 86%, and here is what comparable Ohio districts (Ravenna 7 miles away, Niles 31 miles, Poland 41 miles, Woodridge 10 miles) spend per student on classroom instruction.” Ravenna’s FMX-published operational data is the start of that artifact.
3. 12-month transparency engagement (the user’s framing): no levy on the ballot for 18 months. Deevers/Scarcipino instead run a public-facing facilities-condition + per-pupil-spending dashboard, monthly. Build the data narrative before the next ask. The cohort’s “Chester County moment” — when a district stops running asks and starts running engagement.
4. Reconsider Deevers’s tenure as primary spokesperson. Three superintendent-led campaigns have failed. Whether the next ask is led by Deevers, Scarcipino, or a board-led campaign committee changes who the opposition messages against.
5. Drop the athletics framing entirely. The cuts happened. They didn’t move voters. Continuing to use athletics as the visible risk only confirms the opposition narrative that the district is willing to take from kids to extract a tax.

8. FMX outreach hook — strategic, not tactical

This is the cohort’s strategic-engagement prospect, not a 60-day data-product play. The prior brief framed Streetsboro as “high-fit prospect with unusual urgency profile” — that framing was correct for May 2026 and proved insufficient. The May 5 result is dispositive: another fast data product won’t fix this. What Streetsboro needs is a 12-month transparency partnership with FMX as the data layer — not “campaign artifact for the November ballot.”

Contact unit unchanged: Cynthia Deevers (Supt) + C.J. Scarcipino (CBO). Scarcipino remains the right primary contact — he owns the salary-vs-benefits ratio that Flauhaus uses against the district, and the per-building data that would refute it. Lead with Scarcipino.

Opener (revised for 4th-defeat reality): “Four asks in 24 months. Four defeats. May 2024 7-mill, May 2025 5-mill CPT, Nov 2025 5-mill CPT, May 2026 7-mill 5-yr. The continuing-to-5-year move bought you 6 points and you still lost by 6. Ravenna City, 7 miles away, 94% similarity, is already on FMX publishing 94.3% work-order resolution. Niles City, 31 miles, is on the platform too. The next ask isn’t a data-artifact problem; it’s a ‘stop running the same ask and rebuild civic trust’ problem. We can be your data layer for the 12-month engagement window between now and your 5th attempt — monthly per-building condition, peer-spending comparison against Ravenna / Niles / Woodridge / Poland, salary-vs-benefits peer benchmark to neutralize Flauhaus’s 86% argument. Not ‘get FMX in 60 days for November.’ ‘Get FMX as your transparency engine for 2026–2027, then ask voters once, with the data they’ve had 12 months to digest.’”

FMX-internal flag: Streetsboro is the cohort’s strategic-engagement bet — long sales cycle, low immediate ARR pressure, high reference value if it works (every 3-fail Ohio district will be watching). Worth treating as a marquee/case-study opportunity rather than a quarter-close target.