District Administration - May 2011 - (Page 81)

of Student-Based Budgeting cant changes to collective bargaining agreements may need to be made in order to give principals the true flexibility they need to use their resources strategically. • Strong leadership. We need the best and the brightest to run our schools, but in many ways, the typical principalship is not designed to attract or keep creative, entrepreneurial leaders. In centralized districts, principals’ hands are often tied, and they are not able to make key decisions about their schools. The autonomy and accountability that comes along with SBB changes the principal’s job description and may attract a different type of professional into the principalship. • Incentives to attract and keep students. SBB is often combined with some degree of school choice. Since schools receive dollars for every additional child, they have an incentive to reach out to the community and be responsive to parents in order to attract their target number of students. Challenges • Potentially painful central office transition. SBB requires major changes to a central office’s structures, organization and mindset, such as being there to serve schools, rather than simply telling them what to do. Some staff may need to be retrained or laid off because the function they served is no longer needed. For instance, if control over teacher professional development is devolved to schools, the central office staff who used to provide teacher professional development will no longer be needed. • Complexity. Developing a meaningful formula of what to weigh and by how much is challenging. Much of the necessary research base is lacking, and inevitably, the politics of different interest groups create rocky shoals to navigate. Questions such as these might surface: How much should an ELL student cost? What about an autistic student? As the research base on effective programs and associated costs for special needs students get better, it will be easier for districts to set their formulas. • Fiscal oversight, compliance and accountability. SBB districts must create fiscal oversight systems to ensure that funds are being spent appropriately and must also make sure that schools are compliant with state, federal and union regulations. This is much harder to do when the district isn’t controlling resources directly. In addition, SBB requires a rethinking of the accountability system to make sure that principals are being held accountable for results. • Increased data needs. SBB requires more and better data. For example, an SBB district needs enrollment projections that estimate not just how many children will enroll in a particular school next fall, but how many of them will be ELL students, how many will be special education students, and how many will be whatever other student types are weighted. When enrollment projections are off, funding is off, and that means dollars need to be added or subtracted after the school year has started and actual head counts come in. It’s hard for principals to budget effectively when funding levels are uncertain, and it can be disruptive for the students if staff assignments change after the school year has begun. • Principal capacity. SBB involves giving up a large portion of control to principals, and districts worry: Will principals do the right things with their newfound autonomy? Since most principals do not have prior experience with aligning resources around their instructional goals, districts must provide intensive support and training so that principals can budget effectively. Providing high-quality, ongoing training for principals has proved challenging for many SBB districts. The central office would need to devote more resources to it and hire people with the right skill set and ability to run good training programs. • Added leadership burden. SBB requires principals to be both the chief academic officers and the chief executive officers of their schools. Many principals see themselves as instructional leaders and feel that the operations/budget side is a distraction from their main work. Some schools have successfully solved this problem by hiring school business officers to shoulder the administrative work, or they have changed the role of the assistant principal. In other cases, it’s a matter of getting what is and isn’t decentralized right, so that principals have the flexibility they need to design their schools well but don’t have to deal with things like ordering toilet paper. Naomi Calvo is a consulting manager at Education Resource Strategies. She works with districts to evaluate and improve their resource allocation systems and school designs. both quantitative and qualitative, that had been standardized across the district could serve as a valuable tool for district-level intervention and support to schools. As Oakland implemented a way to classify the growth and performance of schools, those that were lagging behind would receive more attention and resources from central office—and support the needs of the principal and leadership team. Increasing Transparency School districts have tended to exercise little innovation in reporting financial information to the public and other external stakeholders. Implementing a studentwww.DistrictAdministration.com based budgeting system turns this common practice upside down. Devolving resources to the school level can raise questions from stakeholders about the amount, distribution and direction of resources throughout the organization. If the school district can be clear, concise and simple in its response, this will enhance the level of transparency for the organization. In addition, it will force the school district to simplify the explanation about how resources are expended. In Oakland, the budget department was continually improving its techniques to communicate with internal and external stakeholders via community meetings and an improved Web site. It became one of several areas that were reviewed periodically to identify how the department could improve further. The initial clarity in presenting how dollars are allocated can then be used to improve and advance systems within the organization. Oakland worked to develop streamlined, easy-to-use budget reports for schools. A principal would have a consistent and readable resource from which to make decisions. Another example is identifying districtwide indicators that mark significant and symbolic measures that emphasize priorities. In Oakland, each year we identified the percentage of unrestricted general fund May 2011 81 http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - May 2011

District Administration - May 2011
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
The Cradle-to-Career Solution
Turnaround Principals
Starving for Recess
Army Strong, Superintendent Savvy
Budgeting Based on Student Needs
Research Center
Books
Product Focus
Products
Superintendent's Insights
Crisis Response
Going Mobile
Professional Opinion

District Administration - May 2011