Resource Allocation, Financial Planning, and Budgeting

My district does have a budget policy. It is located here: https://www.bvsd.org/businessservices/Budget/Proposed%20Budgets/2018-19%20Proposed%20Budget%20Book.pdf.

It is a comprehensive plan, with over 300 pages of information. It starts with financial awards and documentation of excellence. Then it shares an executive plan, who is on the School Board, how decisions are made, what the mission/vision is and how the budget is established based on that. It also outlines district-wide FTE and student enrollment numbers, demographic overview, programs and services, personnel trends, budget development process and funds overviews ("2018-2019 Proposed Budget," pg. 5, 2018). 

Next, it outlines the organization section. In this section, there is a profile of the government, budget decisions shaped by goals, budget development and timelines, type and description of funds, and a strategic plan. 

Further in the document, it entails school district organizational structures and operating departments. Then it lists every school in the district in its own section, a financial section, special revenue funds, debt service funds, capital project funds, internal service funds, feduciary funds, and an informational section. 

Outside sources for input include tax payers as we have several mill levies and bond measures that our district has passed in the past or will hope to pass in the future. Additionally, we have the State of Colorado and governor policies that inform some of the budgeting requirements and considerations in our district. 

This document seems extremely comprehensive. One area that I would give a recommendation is that each school be given special consideration for funds per their individual needs, programs, and demographics, vs. a one-size-fits all model for district funded school programming and infrastructure. 

Reference

2018-2019 Proposed Budget (Rep.). (2018). Retrieved September 26, 2018, from Boulder Valley School District website: https://www.bvsd.org/businessservices/Budget/Proposed Budgets/2018-19 Proposed Budget Book.pdf

Adequacy, Equality, and Equity

An adequate allocation of resources to public education doesn't necessarily mean that all students are getting the same access or opportunities. Adequate is the bare minimum, the must-do. In my opinion, this is not enough to sustain or enrich the education of many students in our communities. 

School are burdened with much more than providing adequate chairs, tables, and white boards. The bare minimum that is provided by state funding is simply not enough. Schools that are located in high socio-economic brackets and neighborhoods reap the benefits of this, and their schools are better: they have more resources, better access to technology, more opportunities for extra-curriculars, and richer libraries, etc. I work in a school in one of the best districts in the state: Boulder Valley. However, our school is in East County, and has a lower socio-economic neighborhood, more diverse population, and many more needs than other schools in our district. We get adequate funding to keep our lights on, to keep the water running and the doors open. However, many of our neighboring schools get much more than adequate funding because they have PTOs that raise sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars more than us a year. Our largest fundraiser of the year garners us around 5k or 6k. At schools 10 miles away, they have fundraisers that raise over 100k. So, no, I do not believe an adequate education is enough because it is not equitable: some students, families, and communities thrive while others in the same district scrap and scrape. 

I don't believe in equality. I believe in equity and justice. Equity is differentiated support based on the needs of a group of people or person, realizing that every individual might need different supports to attain the same goals. And, to me, justice is finding ways to remove systemic barriers that keep certain individuals or groups of people from having the same access to achievement and opportunities so that future generations can realize success on a "more equal" playing field. 

I find this quote from "Politics, Adequacy, and Education Funding," to be particularly apt:

"A 'quality education' is defined differently by different actors. These two variables do not have a linear relationship. Perhaps this question is more appropriately answered by John Stevens in his October 22, 2010 blog, “The Relationship Between Education Funding and Quality,” when he stated that when one asks this question, one is really asking two questions: 1. Can we improve the quality of education by improving the efficiency or the priorities with which educational funding is spent, instead of increasing the funding? 2. What quality of education should the public pay for, and at what point is additional quality the responsibility of the individual student or family" (Ikpa, pg. 472, 2010). 

The second question is particularly important to me. It seems to me, from personal experience and national trends, that the neighborhoods with more needs put more weight on schools (and other social programs) that in wealthier neighborhoods are supported by family units. What is the line of what a school is supposed to provide in order for kids to have an "adequate education" and are the responsibilities of families? We do a hell of a lot more than provide 7 class periods a day, in some cases we provide clothes, two solid meals a day, and safety to students who otherwise don't get this in their family lives. Decisions administrators, school board members, and politicians make deeply impact these populations the most and if education in America is to move forward, we must think about the restructure of some of these social paradigms. 

Reference
Ikpa, V. W. (2016). Politics, adequacy, and education funding. Education, 136(4), 468-472.

Module 1 Discussion

I have an MA in Information and Learning Technologies, and I used to teach technology elective classes, so I feel that I have a good amount of experience with blogging and the idea of using blogs to communicate with a wide audience. I have a library blog for our school that I maintain, and I used to also teach a blogging class, so I helped students manage their own personal blogs and learn the key skills of website design and online communication.

I think that a school leader would find blogging a very effective way to communicate with many stakeholders in the school community. The multimedia aspect of blogging allows a leader to communicate through words, pictures, videos, and infographics in a really dynamic and up-to-date way. Blogs can be read on multiple devices, which makes it accessible to many members of a community. Additionally, it can be updated in seconds, which makes it constantly edit-able and update-able.

Barriers of blogs exist in getting your users to regularly use and check the blog. Communication to key stakeholders about the blog, how often it will be updated, etc., is a key piece of having a blog. Additionally, some individuals in our school community still don't have consistent access to the Internet. Many of our students come from multi-lingual or monolingual non-English speaking families, and so this might also present a barrier when using a blog. The opposite side of this is that some blogs have add-ons to translate the page from one language to another, so it may be a barrier, but may also break down some barriers. I think it all depends on the administrators intention, how frequently they post, and how they communicate with stakeholders to place value in checking the blog.

Finally, a leader who uses technology and a blog to communicate and share school news, shows that he/she values education as a tool for learning and communication. According to the Dept. of Education and Educational Technology, when a leader uses technology in their practice, "They model tolerance for risk and experimentation and create a culture of trust and innovation" ("Reimagining the role", 2018). Teachers will be more likely to risk-take and innovate if the leader of a school models and values this behavior.

Reference

U.S. Department of Education. (2017). Reimagining the role of technology in education: 2017 national education technology plan update. Retrieved from https://tech.ed.gov/netp/