New Poll Shows Widespread Support for Minuteman High School Building Project

For Release:
September 8, 2015

Contact:
Steven C. Sharek
Minuteman High School
(781) 861-6500, ext. 7360

New Poll Reveals Widespread Support for Minuteman Building Project

LEXINGTON – Voters in the Minuteman High School district support the school, its programs, and a proposal to replace the school with a new building – and they do so in big numbers, a new poll shows. The poll of 400 registered voters was conducted by nationally-recognized pollster David Paleologos of DAPA Research Inc. in late August. It has a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percentage points.

The poll, which was commissioned by Minuteman, was designed to gauge voters’ sentiment about the school and the quality of its programs, their awareness and level of support for a proposed building project, and the factors that most influence voters’ opinions.

“This poll shows that there’s a strong positive feeling in the district about Minuteman High School and its programs,” said pollster David Paleologos, head of DAPA Research Inc.

“There’s a clear willingness to build a new school,” Paleologos said. “And this support crosses all demographics: gender, income, age, area, and even political party. These are overwhelming numbers, and the type of results we don’t see very often.”

Some 78% of voters polled indicated positive or very positive feelings about the school, with only 2% indicating they had negative feelings. Sixty-four percent (64%) indicated they had positive or very positive feelings about the quality of the vocational-technical programs at Minuteman, with just 2% indicating negative feelings.

The poll showed overwhelming support for construction of a new school. Some 68.5% indicated they would vote to build a new school, 23% were undecided, and 8.5% indicated they would oppose it.

Intensity of support for a new school was higher than intensity of opposition, according to Mr. Paleologos.

Keys factors influencing voters decisions were impact on students (31%), impact on tax bills (22%), and condition of the existing building (16%).

By a margin of 46%-39%, voters indicated that they would prefer to see a decision about the project made by voters during a district-wide ballot, instead of by individual Town Meetings in each of the 16 Minuteman towns. Some 76% of those preferring a district-wide ballot favored building a new school; 63% of those preferring Town Meeting approval favored building a new school.

The live telephone poll was approved by the Minuteman School Committee in July and was conducted by DAPA Research August 25-28. Before the survey got underway, the polling questions were submitted to the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance for approval.

The Minuteman district includes 16 towns: Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Bolton, Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Lincoln, Needham, Stow, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston.

The District is currently designing a new 628-student Minuteman High School which will include two Career Academies, 16 vocational-technical programs, and a rigorous academic curriculum. The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) recently endorsed the project on a unanimous vote.

For further information about the survey, David Paleologos may be reached at (781) 290-9310.