Half-Penny Promise Website

Content Modeling & Site Development

I designed and built the campaign website for Hillsborough Students Deserve Better, the political committee supporting renewal of Hillsborough County Public Schools’ half-penny sales tax. The site connects 238 schools to the 46 projects the tax has funded and the projects renewal would fund, empowering voters to browse it by school or by project type.

The Challenge

The campaign needed voters to see what the tax had already paid for at their own school and what renewal would pay for next. That information existed, but not in a form voters could use.

The district tracked the work in two spreadsheets with different formats, one for completed and in-progress projects and one for proposed projects. Both had to become a structured, searchable site before the Nov. 3 vote.

Diagram titled How the Half-Penny Promise Site Is Structured. Three inputs, School (238 school posts), Project Type (46 project posts), and Project Phase (3 values), point into a central Project Record box (1,908 records). A divider separates the backend from the frontend. Below it, records feed two outputs: the School Page, listing its projects grouped by phase, and the Project Page, listing its schools grouped by phase.

Slide titled From Two District Spreadsheets to One Import File. Top: a crop of the original district spreadsheet, a color-coded grid of schools against rotated project column headings, with the Hillsborough High row and Roof Replacement column highlighted where they meet. Bottom: the compiled import CSV, with columns for record title, school, project, and phase, highlighting the row for Hillsborough High, Roof Replacement, Completed.

Slide titled One Record, Three Relationships. Left: the WordPress Project Records list showing 1,908 published records, each titled by school, project, and phase, with Hillsborough High, Roof Replacement, Completed highlighted. Right: the edit screen for that record, with Related School set to Hillsborough High, Related Project set to Roof Replacement, and the Completed phase assigned.

Slide titled The School Page: Every Project, Grouped by Phase. Left: the Hillsborough High school page, listing six completed projects, one project in progress, and three proposed for referendum funding after 2028. Right: a close-up of the Completed Since 2018 section with Roof Replacement highlighted.

Slide titled The Project Page: Every School, Grouped by Phase. Left: a shortened view of the Roof Replacement project page, with schools grouped under Completed Since 2018, In Progress for 2018 Cycle, and Proposed for Referendum Funding after 2028. Right: a close-up of the completed list with Hillsborough High highlighted.

Slide titled The School Projects Page: Every School, Searchable by Name. A search for "hil" returns Chiles Elementary, Forest Hills Elementary, Hill Middle, Hillsborough High, and Riverhills Elementary, with Hillsborough High highlighted.

Content Architecture & Build

Designed the information architecture and content model, connecting schools, project types, and phases through a single Project Record content type.
Built the site in WordPress with Elementor and ACF Pro as sole developer.
Merged the two district spreadsheets into one import file using Claude, then spot checked the output against the district files before generating 1,908 records.
Built school and project page templates that assemble their lists from those records, grouped by phase, with phase headings that stay pinned through long lists.
Directed and edited site copy drafted with AI assistance from campaign source material.
Built the site to the campaign style guide I created, which also governs print, signage, and social graphics.