Voters in the Rockwood area headed to the polls on Nov. 4 to vote on Proposition S, a proposed tax levy for those living in the region that would raise teacher salaries, put new school safety officers in place, and provide more staff members with benefits. Proposition S was narrowly defeated in the polls that Tuesday, with only around 500 votes being the difference maker. 

The main purpose of Prop. S was to raise property taxes by 45 cents per $100. If passed, it was projected to generate $27 million annually. Without this money in place, many Rockwood residents have been left questioning, what’s next for the district?

Rockwood Superintendent Dr. Curtis Cain said with the bill not passing, Rockwood is not in a state of emergency, but rather a state of evaluation. 

“I think people need to understand this does not put us in a position where we need to panic. We just need to go through the mathematical exercises and calculations that we’ll go through, continue to pay attention to the landscape, both legislatively and fiscally, that is in front of us for the upcoming spring and then ultimately move forward,” Cain said. 

Furthermore, Cain said Rockwood is in the hands of individuals who, though saddened by the defeat of Prop. S, are continuing to work for a stronger Rockwood. 

“Our fiscal team, as well as the leadership team, being a cabinet, and the Board of Education spent a lot of time making sure that we’re being as measured and aware as we can be of what fiscal reality looks like,” Cain said. “We are not in a position where we’re going to have to engage in reduction in force or elimination of positions. That’s not where we are, because we’ve had a very fiscally responsible perspective when it comes to our dollars and how to ultimately deal with the tax dollars and other funding sources that we have, and that doesn’t change,” Cain said. 

Public campaigning for the proposition began in the early months of the school year. In the campaign trail for Prop. S, Cain said that he and his staff worked tirelessly to promote the bill. 

“We had 102 presentations [to campaign], and I think that the effort to get the word out speaks for itself. Those numbers aren’t debatable. We were everywhere in just over seven weeks to really get the word out so our community had an awareness. We laid it all out there to get that word out. Whether it was arriving at a location before 7 o’clock in the morning, so you can share the news of what the proposition would have been for our community, all the way to evening presentations stretching past 8 o’clock at night, we were everywhere,” Cain said. 

The belief in Prop. S was apparent to those in and outside of the Rockwood community. Cain said that the support given to the bill was one of his greatest takeaways from the election process. 

“What I saw, not just in our schools, but all also in our community, was tremendous support, tremendous appreciation for what our staff does on a daily basis. There are patrons that are not staff members that are some of the most ardent supporters of the Rockwood School District that you will find, I believe, on this planet. There’s a myriad of responses and reactions to what people have seen, and I think that all of that has to be taken into account. But there is still, and I believe there will always be a tremendous appreciation and pride for what happens within the Rockwood School District,” Cain said. 

A lot of the support for Prop. S, Cain said, came from students from all Rockwood schools. 

“I can’t tell you how uplifting it was to see the involvement and awareness of our student body, from all four high schools. We have students that are aware and want to be informed, and want to share a balanced story. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the behavior that I have seen by students at every single one of our high schools. We actually had students show up at one of the community engagement sessions. That was 7 o’clock in the morning. High school students were there to witness and participate in a community engagement, ‘Coffee with Dr. Cain’ session. That says so very much. I’m so proud of our students,” Cain said. 

Even though the result was not the outcome Rockwood was hoping for, Cain said that the community must not lose the ambition they have. 

“Don’t lose hope, please don’t lose the drive that you wake up with every day. You do what’s in the best interest of students, whether it’s directly supporting them in the classroom and leading instruction or whatever your role happens to be. Someone shared something [with me] that I’ve picked up and I’ve been utilizing, and it was that the puzzle only works if you have all of the puzzle pieces. And the whole thought behind Prop. S was making sure that we take care of those who take care of our kids,” Cain said. 

Though it can be a hard pill to swallow, Cain said that this election helped to emphasize the true spirit of Rockwood students, staff, and patrons. 

“The truth is, in life, you don’t control all of the variables. The great question is, when you are knocked down, what do you next do? What [do] your next steps look like? Do you find the strength to get up and keep moving forward?” Cain said. “The very first place I visited the day after the election was a school. And I

can tell you, I could feel, really from staff, that [they had] an awareness of what the outcome happened to be with the ballot. People have a right to go through and work through whatever emotions and thoughts that they happen to have, but what I saw is what I’ve seen every day in our school district. Teachers being laser-like focused on making sure that kids were OK, that the school day was up and going, and that instruction was happening in every space, and students looking forward [to be] with their teachers. I saw Rockwood being Rockwood, and that isn’t going to change. There is nothing that’s going to happen at the ballot [for] anyone else in time that’s going to change us from our focus and our dedication and our commitment to be what is in the best interests of our kids. And as long as we hold true to that fact, we are ultimately going to be OK as a school district,” Cain said.