Various Roles in the Budget Process

 Central Office Administrators and Staff: The big picture. An ability to look at things from a larger scale and pinpoint where money is needed and where cuts can be made.
 Principals: Same idea as above, but on a campus level.
 Site Based Decision Making Committees: Given a good deal of information on classes and special programs, and with parents serving on this committee, is an already established group with multiple perspectives.
 District Improvement Committee: Same as above but on a larger, district wide scale.
 Teacher Organizations: No matter the economic times, this is a group that will make sure the needs of teachers is always considered and thought about when budgets are being developed.
 Key Stakeholders: This is the entire community. With the current budget situation, they are being involved now more than ever.
 Board of Trustees: Elected to voice the concerns and needs of the citizens, they can meet with community members and report back on a regular basis.

SUPERINTENDENT'S ROLE

The superintendent’s role is very much to the help drive the ship, especially in this very difficult economic time. He lays out the district needs, the goals that need to be accomplished, and the way in which you can get there. But in these times, having the buy in of all involved in the process is an absolute necessity. An example of this has been going on in College Station for the past 2 weeks. The superintendent has gone to each campus and spoken to the entire staff to discuss the reality of the situation we’re in. His reason for it- everyone has a right to know where we are in this process and they deserve to hear it from me. As administrators, we were given the charge to tell our staffs about the progress made on the budget throughout the year. Now, the superintendent has taken the lead in telling the information to the entire staffs of each school in the district and encouraging them to help disseminate the information to their friends and neighbors as well. He also mentioned that there will be a public forum held later this spring when the budget has been passed at the state level to tell everyone what the district is facing. As is the case with telling the staffs the news now, telling everyone in the community is an attempt to get all stakeholders involved in the budget process.

Budget Adoption Process

What jumps out to me, first and foremost, is how truly complicated the budget process is. As campus administrators, we often discuss the various pots of money that exist and the projects that can and cannot be funded by those sources. That’s a key ingredient to developing a budget at the school level, but it is an absolutely vital part to creating one at the district level. Beyond that, a school district must be able to create a balanced budget, be able to forecast projected costs for future budgets, and if a major project is on-going, budgeting for a each year of that is a requirement. To that end, the creation of a well organized and thought out budget calendar is essential. The state sets two required dates (when the budget must be done, August 20, and when the school board must approve it, August 31), but aside from those dates, the calendar must leave ample time for research, workshops, public hearings, revisions, review, and final adoption. It’s a detailed calendar for a detailed process that must be constructed thoughtfully and precisely to assure that budget will be done by the state mandated dates.
However, of all of the major components of the budget mentioned in the document, the one thing that stuck out to me more than anything else was the budget as an accountability tool for the public and taxpayers to use for the school district. Districts must be good stewards of the people’s money, and creating a well thought out, goal driven budget is the main component of that. It is a visible tool, readily accessible for stakeholders to access and see where there money is going and how much of it is being spent there. Keeping that in mind as the budget is being created will certainly help keep members of the budget team honest and focused throughout the process.

Intern Plan review with Dr. Ealy

After several revisions and great feedback from classmates, I took the semi-final draft of my intern plan and had Dr. Ealy offer his opinion on it's value. While he agreed that all 38 areas in the plan needed to be covered and had value, there were some areas where special attention will need to be paid. While curriculum related topics are very important, the plan was seen as curriculum heavy in number of assignments. as a superintendent, you will need to have a knowledge of these areas, but its the day to day operational pieces that Dr. Ealy advised that I spend my most hours on. Whether it being learning how to plan a district budget, going over personnel issues, deciding pay formulas, or analyzing and evaluating the running of the physical plant, my focus need to be in the day to day operations of the district. As a campus administrator, you get very little practice in these areas, so making the jump from campus to district administrator can be very difficult without experience in these areas. As a result, my plan will be geared towards these areas, starting yesterday when I attended the district level administrative meeting (SUCCESS Team in College Station ISD). This meeting, typically attended by the Superintendent's cabinet and head campus principals, is joint leadership and decision making at it's finest. Attending these meetings will be very valuable and give me a great deal added knowledge as to the decision making process at the district level.

Superintendent Interview

I conducted my interview with Dr. Clark Ealy, Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services in College Station ISD. I had the questions ready to go and figured we would go through them in order, but after the first question, it became obvious we would bounce around and so many of the topics were intertwined in others that the interview would just happen. My first question out dealt with the definition of leadership, which Dr. Ealy described as being the moral and intellectual compass for the district. You have to be able to make the decisions that best affect all stakeholders, guided by a knowledge of all issues and the district’s vision. Basically, this is no small task, but it starts with the very simple, yet sometimes complicated, idea of doing what is best for the most people each time. I followed up by asking why he started with being a moral leader- again, simple answer. If you can’t do what is right and be guided by the correct principles, then you’re not going to come to the correct decisions. You have to be able to make the best decision for all 10,400 students in the district and not just the ones whose parents speak the loudest or cause the biggest uproar. With that, you have to have a thick skin and a short memory and know that the decisions you make are being made for all of the right reasons.

     The biggest issue impacting CSISD currently is attendance lines for the new elementary and high school set to open in 2011 and 2012 respectively. That issue weighed heavily in my asking the next three questions. An area on my self assessment that I needed to focus on was how to build a productive relationship with the school board (competency 4). My father in law is on the school board in a different school district, so we’ve spent some time talking about his perspective on relationships with central office and the type of information he needs as a board member to make a decision. Dr. Ealy emphasized the importance of building a personal relationship with each of the board members and not picking out a couple of them to bounce ideas off of. Boards can only act as a group and can only make a decision in a publicly called meeting, so their ideas are always public. That makes it even more important to get to know them and to have them trust you when it comes to big decisions. Redistricting was one example of this in College Station; the process took months to unfold, and by the time it got to the board, there was a good deal of public feedback. While the secondary plan is still being discussed, the school board had the confidence in the administration to know the plans were solid, done with a great deal of care, and was able to adopt the elementary plan in fairly short order. The process of this issue (rezoning), let me back to competency 3 and the importance of communication with all stakeholders. The community had three chances to give their opinion on the criteria for the rezoning committee to use and then three more chances to give their opinion once the lines had been proposed. There were no secrets in this process and the school district used a marketing blitz to encourage anyone and everyone to attend all of these public sessions. This blitz was another factor allowing the school board to move forward with their part of the process since they know their constituents had an opportunity to give their feedback on the plan.

      The issue of rezoning and communication also led me to combining my questions for competencies 5 and 8 and the need for strategic planning in areas of curriculum, budgeting, and personnel resources. Strategic planning was needed to know new lines must be drawn for these schools and that certain factors (low SES populations, building size, etc.) must be taken into consideration. Opening these schools also costs a great deal of money, and while a 2009 bond election is funding the construction of these schools, the money to operate them must also be found. This has led to several district committees meeting to discuss areas where the district can save money and be more fiscally responsible. Some of them are easier decisions, such as altering bus routes to make them more efficient and adjusting heating practices to save money during the winter. Others are much more difficult, to include altering start times and asking teachers to pick up additional classes. The current part of this process has been to get feedback from teachers on the various proposals coming out of the committees and this has been heated to say the least. I’ve been amazed by the difficulty of doing so at the campus level, Dr. Ealy emphasized that it is even more difficult at the district level. He came back to the very first point he made to me though to answer how you deal with it- you must be a moral leader and make the best decision for as many people as you can. Having money drive an issue can limit your parameters of decision making, so you have to work even harder to find solutions that we keep teacher moral and classroom instruction high. We have been shielded by many of the budget issues in the state for a while, but reality has hit College Station and we’re faced with many difficult challenges.

      The overwhelming lesson that I learned from my interview with Dr. Ealy is how truly interconnected everything is. I went in with the intent of asking 15 separate questions, some of which may relate to one another, but in general were independent areas. While this held true with a couple of questions, the interview was dominated by bouncing between questions and seeing how truly linked each competency is with the other. Whether it was curriculum or operations, school board relations or physical plant operations, common themes emerged that threaded theses diverse areas together.

Vita

Professional Vita

I've placed a link to my wikispaces page which contains my Professional Vita above. Please go to the discussions page on that page to provide feedback for the vita!

Transfer Theory... Campus to Central Office

The example in this weeks video (you know how to tie shoelaces of any type once you know how to tie one) is a great basic example of transfer theory. And while I generally agree that a base level of knowledge means you can expand on it in different settings, it won't come without some trials. As campus level administrators, we do have our hands on multiple areas of managing the school, but the decisions are being made for one campus and for the betterment of one group of people. Superintendents must consider how all decisions effect all stakeholders in the district- this is no small task and will come will an adjustment period. With that said, understanding how to manage personnel at the school level, for example, can be translated to the district level. You're still looking for quality people who are certified in needed areas and fit your district's standards for educators. In a good district, your campus goals will be aligned with the district goals, so that part should be an easy transition. In financial matters, the budget will certainly be much larger, but you still have to fund technology, fund multiple departments, and field requests from multiple entities as you go. So again, your base set of knowledge can help you as you begin to transfer knowledge from the campus to district level, but it will certainly come will at least some time period of adjustment.

Blogs and Educational Leaders

Blogs are a great way to get your thoughts out to a wide audience of people- athletes use it, politicians have staffers that use it for them... so why not school leaders. When policies are changed or feedback is needed, using a blog can be a great way to disseminate information and reach a larger amount of your stakeholders than you may have previously been able to. This allows real feedback while letting others know where you stand and why you stand for it.