❖ Open Seats MCPASD
Carry it yourself

You don't need permission.
You need a printer.

Any elector who lives in this district can carry this petition — today, on your own street, to your own neighbors. You don't have to join anything, ask anyone, or wait to be trained. Print a sheet, get it signed in pen, hand it back. That's the whole job.

—
Signatures still needed
—
Days left to collect
Aug 20
Last day to turn sheets in

Three steps. Really.

One evening on your own block is about fifteen signatures. Ten people doing that, once, is the entire campaign.

1

Print the official sheet

It has to be this sheet. Wisconsin law (§ 8.40) requires the exact petition wording and a circulator certification — so a sheet you retype yourself doesn't count, and neither does a Google Form, an email, or a text saying "I'd sign."

Print as many as you want. Ten signature lines per page.

Download the sheet (PDF) Or get paper sheets from us
2

Get neighbors to sign it — in pen

Knock, or catch people at a game, a barbecue, the pickup line. The pitch takes thirty seconds:

"Our school board has nine seats, and every one is locked to a geographic Area — Middleton and Westport hold four of them, my Area holds one. In the last two elections, not one race gave us a choice. This keeps the board at nine but opens four seats to anyone in the district. Nobody loses a seat. Nobody loses a vote. Would you sign?"

Read the five rules below before you knock. They're the difference between a signature that counts and one that gets thrown out.

3

Sign the circulator box, then get it back to us

At the bottom of every sheet is a Certification of Circulator. You print your name, write your home address, and sign it.

If that box is blank, every signature on the page is void — not just yours. It's the single most common way a perfectly good sheet dies.

The five rules that make a signature count

Read this part twice.

A signature that breaks any one of these gets thrown out — and nobody finds out until it's far too late to fix. Collecting 500 signatures is hard. Collecting 500 that survive is the actual job, and it's the one most petitions lose.

1
They must live inside the school district. Not "near Middleton" — in MCPASD. The district takes in Middleton, Cross Plains, Springfield, Westport, parts of the Town of Middleton, Berry, Vermont, and a slice of Madison. If you're unsure, ask which schools their kids would attend. A signature from outside the district is dead on arrival.
2
Wet ink. Their hand, their pen. No typing, no signing on a spouse's behalf, no "he'd sign too if he were home." One person, one signature, in pen.
3
Municipality of residence — not their mailing address. This is the one that kills sheets. The form says so in its own words: "The municipality used for mailing purposes, when different than municipality of residence, is not sufficient." Plenty of people with a "Middleton, WI" mailing address actually live in the Town of Middleton, or the Village of Cross Plains, or the Town of Springfield. They have to tick the right box — Town / Village / City — and write the right name.
4
Full street address. No P.O. boxes. Street number and name, legibly. A rural route needs the box or fire number. If you can't read it back to them, nobody can verify it — so write it clearly yourself if their handwriting gives out.
5
The date they signed — and your certification. Every line needs a date. And you must fill in the Certification of Circulator at the bottom, in your own hand, with your own home address. A blank circulator box voids the whole page.
The trap that has cost us the most

"Middleton" is three different places. There's the City of Middleton, the Town of Middleton, and a Middleton mailing address that can mean either — plus pieces of Springfield and Westport. The Post Office doesn't care about the difference. The school district clerk does.

So don't let anyone just write "Middleton." Say the sentence out loud, every single time: "City of Middleton, or Town of Middleton?" That's ten extra seconds per signature, and it's the highest-value ten seconds in this campaign.

Who can sign, and who can carry

They can sign if they…

  • Live inside the MCPASD district
  • Are 18 or older
  • Have lived at that address 28+ days
  • Are a U.S. citizen

They do not need kids in the schools, and they do not need to be registered to vote right now — just eligible.

The signature is void if…

  • They live outside the district
  • Someone signed on their behalf
  • The municipality is wrong or blank
  • It's a P.O. box
  • The circulator box is unsigned

Getting the sheet back to us

Any of these works — pick whichever is easiest.

Text a photo the moment you finish. Snap every page and send it. That way we can start logging it even if the paper takes a few days to reach us. The photo does not replace the paper — the original has to physically reach the clerk — but it means nothing is lost if a sheet goes astray.

Then get us the original. Hand it to any circulator, drop it off, or mail it. Contact details are on the home page.

Deadline: Thursday, August 20. Sheets in our hands by then — we file with the district on Friday, August 21. State law requires the petition be filed at least 30 days before the Annual Meeting on September 22. There is no extension, no grace period, and no appeal. A sheet that turns up on August 22 is worth nothing at all.

And then — show up

Signatures only get this onto the agenda. What actually decides it is a show of hands at the Annual Meeting — Tuesday, September 22, 7:00 PM — and only the people in the room get to vote. Five hundred signatures can be beaten by forty people in chairs. Put it in your calendar now, and bring somebody with you.

Open Seats MCPASD — a parent-led citizen petition under Wis. Stat. § 120.02. Volunteer-run. No PAC, no party.

Home · FAQ · Petition sheet