Teachers are underpaid and underappreciated

In our district we spend about $10.8 million dollars on salaries.  This equates to about 62% of the total General Operating Fund Budget.  This percentage at first glance seemed very low to me and made me think we were not paying our teachers adequately.  Upon further review, I began to think differently.  

I knew that our salaries were competitive with surrounding districts, but I also found that these other districts also use roughly the same percent of their budget.  Our percentage is still lower, but not by much.  Another realization I had was in relation to our financial situation.  We have always been a very financially sound district. Even in the financial crisis that we are in now, we are still doing OK.  We were even able to give a raise to all employees this year.  The reason we could is probably in part due to the fact that we only use 62% of our budget on salaries.  If our salary percentage was as high as 80-85% we would be feeling the budget cuts much harder and would not even be able to consider raises.

With all that being said, I do feel that we could increase our spending on salary a bit. In doing so, we would be impacting many other portions of our budget too.  If we were to increase salaries by 5% there are positive and negatives. 

First and most obvious would be a boost in morale.  Anytime you can pay someone more for the work they are doing, they will be happier.  Secondly, if the district were able to tell the employees “Thank You” with a pay raise, it would reward them for their hard work and dedication.  Another positive reason for a pay raise would be for retention.  Teachers will probably stick around if they are financially benefiting.  Finally, by giving a raise we are competing for salaries at a higher level.  We are currently on the low-end of the competitive salary scale in our area.  It would be nice to move up that list and have districts compete to catch us.

The most obvious negative impact of a 5% pay raise would be the huge amount of money that it would cost.  For our small, property-poor, 3A school district it would be a little over half a million dollars in salary increases.  That kind of increased spending would have damaging effects on other programs that would have to be cut or reduced.  Another negative reason would be that if you did not cut other programs, you would have to dip into your Reserve Funds.  With state funding being cut right now, I do not think anybody wants to do that.

Salaries and raises are always a hot topic of discussion.  This is something that superintendents must have as a priority in order to be successful and long lasting in a district.  Not only is it important for the superintendent, but also educators have always been underpaid and I think any extra money we can give them would be well deserved and appropriate.

School Not-fine-ance

Something needs to be done soon to fix our school finance problem.  I saw something online encouraging people to write their representatives to do away with the portion of property taxes going to schools.  Instead it suggested that schools should be funded through a fair sales tax.  It showed four options, one being how we have it now and the other two not much better options.  I am not sure if the sales tax is the best option either, but it is a better option than what we are using.  I hope this lawsuit gets through the system quickly.  I would like to see a change before next school year.  More importantly, our students across the state deserve a better system.

Week Two Assignments

WEEK TWO ASSIGNMENTS:


Part I:
A school district’s goals and vision should guide all decisions. Specifically, a campus or district budget should be a goal-driven budget. According to our video this week, a goal-driven budget helps attain the shared vision of the district. When district leaders are developing this budget they should be led and steered by the goals of the campuses and district. Many times budgets focus on the essentials and then focus on how to spend what is left. A truly exceptional district will let these goals and areas of focus drive the budget process. When developing priorities of the budget these goals are always at the forefront. 
One way to ensure that your goals influence the budget process is to utilize your campus or district improvement plan. This improvement plan lists all of the areas in need of assistance and usually will tell you what program will be used to address the needs and possibly how much it will cost and from what funding. Many times a campus improvement plan will not specify where the funding comes from and a district-level administrator will ascertain its significance and priority. Sometimes there are grants or federal money available that campus-level administrators may not be aware of. The district can and should utilize all funds available for meeting the budget and also should always keep the goals of the organization as the driving factor.
Our campus and district improvement plans were written with no clear designation to resources available or how the items would be funded. Through this course I have learned the significance of being very specific with your plan and the funding being utilized. I have also seen how there is a big difference between a goal-driven budget and just a list of goals with a separate budget being adopted. These two items should be united. Our district utilizes our goals and builds the budget around it, but it is not an obvious portion of either plan. I think that could be an area of improvement. If stakeholders took the time to analyze and compare the budget and the improvement plans they would see that there are major portions of the budget spent on our weaker areas noted on the improvement plans.

Part II:
Our list is posted on EPIC and Wes's Wiki
Reflection: This portion of the assignment was relatively easy because we all came up with same dates. I felt really good after interviewing our Assistant Superintendent of Business. When I logged on to contribute to my group’s Wiki I was shocked. Donna Fong had already posted and it was almost identical to the list I was given. The only difference was that my list mentioned the template from T.E.A. Our group had no trouble agreeing on a top five since we all had the same ones. I guess we are all in districts that know how to timely plan their budget.

Part III:
Summary of TEA’s Budgeting Guidelines document:
This document has just about everything you need to know in order to create a district budget. It contains general overviews and many specific details that make this document a very valuable tool for any superintendent or chief financial officer of a district. One of the other things that this document offered was some great examples of different ways to develop and implement a budget, as well as, advantages and disadvantages to those methods. The document is very long, but it’s equally beneficial.
Reflection of TEA’s Budgeting Guidelines assignment:
The main thing I learned from this section is how extremely difficult it can be to develop, manage, and evaluate a district’s budget. The document was extremely insightful and I saved the pdf to my files for later use. I knew it was a complicated task, but TEA’s Budgeting Guidelines really opened my eyes. I have always enjoyed working with budgets, but I can see that if I ever get to be a superintendent it may be something that can overwhelm me. I will need to surround myself with a good strong budget team to help me with the budget cycle. I do not know how any one person could do it alone. Even in the smallest of districts, I would assume the Superintendent has help with the massive undertaking.

Part IV:
Summary of our superintendent’s role in the budgeting process:
In our district the Assistant Superintendent for Business takes care of most of the legwork related to developing and managing the budget. Our superintendent does play a role during this process, but it is minimal. It is the superintendent’s job to present it to the board for approval, but even that is a shared task.
Reflection on our superintendent’s role in the budgeting process assignment:
I was a little shocked that the superintendent is not more involved in the development of the budget. Do not get me wrong, he does know what’s going on and does help with the development of the budget, but our assistant superintendent does such a great job he has most of the burden too. Despite the fact that this may seem against my better judgment, I like the way this is done. As a superintendent, you have to surround yourself with capable and competent colleagues. You have to be able to delegate tasks and know that they will get done correctly so that you can expend your time and talents elsewhere. I like the way we are doing it, but I think if I were in that position I would be a little more involved. 

Part V:
Summary of Types of Input Portion of Interview:
Creating, managing, and evaluating the budget can be daunting. It is always a good idea to seek help and input from others on big tasks. The budget may be one of the biggest tasks a superintendent undertakes. In seeking advice or help from others, there are certain areas where each would be better served. For instance: Central Staff might be helpful with salary information, Principals know the needs of their own building and would be better suited to develop their own campus budget (example - status of a copy machine), Site Based Committees may be beneficial for requesting a particular item for their campus (example - new computers), District Improvement Committees would be very helpful in discussions for needs of the district (example - new curriculum, appearance of facilities, staff morale, bonus incentives, etc.), Teacher Organizations could be helpful with discussions related to teacher pay raises, staff morale, teaching tools, etc., Key Stakeholders can have a big influence in the budget (example - transportation routes, facilities, teaching tools, etc.), The Board of Trustees have the final say, as they are the ones that approve the budget. The Board also hears from taxpayers regarding things that not only they want, but also what taxpayers want to see in the district, since it is the taxpayers that elect the Board of Trustees. Remember it is their kids and their money.
Reflection on Types of Input Assignment:
I did not have any big revelations with this portion of the assignment. Most of the information within this section from the interview was things I already knew. I do think it is very important to seek input from these entities and to listen to their concerns. Input from these stakeholders can help you attain the goals and vision you have for the district.

Comparison of District Improvement Plans

While comparing Austin ISD’s Improvement Plan with our district’s plan I noticed a vast difference.  The Austin plan had a tremendous amount of introductory information including the attendance and notes from meetings.  This was very interesting to me because it is not something that I would have thought to be important, but now seeing it in the document I will probably add it to our campus plan.  They also have a much bigger or more obvious focus on the budget in their plan.  Our district plan does not really address budget issues or show where funding comes from for the needed improvements.  Our plan has nothing even similar to Appendix A in the Austin plan.  Our plan is very basic and consists of a table of goals and looks very similar to Appendix B in the Austin plan.  Our goals are very specific and it shows our focus for needed improvement.

In regards to the funding sources and how they support various goals, I did not see much evidence of that at all in our plan.  There are a few places where it states where the funding is coming from, but not in most places.  The Austin ISD plan was much more budget-oriented, but it also did not clearly spell out where all of the money was going to specifically.  Appendix A shows where a big chunk is going, but it did not break it down by each category. 

Overall, the Austin ISD District Improvement Plan is more detailed and has a more clear focus with the budget, but I still like our plan more because it focuses on specific goals and areas of concern.  I wish our plan was more detailed with budget issues.  I think a combination of the two documents would be a great plan.  When we finalize our campus plan in a few weeks, I hope to incorporate some of this information into the plan to make our budget more goal-driven.

Equality, Equity, Adequacy

Equality – Every student has the same access to all programs.

     Examples:

1)    State funding for programs for all students; i.e., Math, Reading, etc.

2)    Local funding that is equal for each similar school regardless of their status; i.e., all elementary schools in the district get the same amount, etc.

Equity – A fair system that responds to the needs of the individual; i.e., state funding for special programs to meet the needs of all students.

     Examples:

1)    Compensatory funds for low SES students

2)    WADA funding for different groups

Adequacy – A school district that receives financial support sufficient to provide support for all programs and all students

     Examples:

1)    Total allocation of the state foundation program; i.e., when teacher salaries are too low, when textbook prices go up, etc.

2)  Tier I portion of the funding formula’s basic allotment: the cost of education adjustment and the small district adjustment

School Finance

In my opinion the three biggest events in Texas school finance history are:

Mirabeau B. Lamar established public land grants to help fund and build our public school system. He is credited as being the Father of Texas Education because he was the main visionary behind this movement to establish and partially fund public schools in Texas. I think this is the biggest event in the historical background of Texas school finance because it got it all started. Without Lamar pushing for these land grants to establish public schools in each county and two major universities we would be way behind. We also need only to look at our university’s name to see how important he was.

The court’s decision in Edgewood v. Kirby got Texas school finance headed in the right direction in regards to equity and equality. This case proved that by using local property taxes to fund local schools our system is unfair and unconstitutional. It helped to promote equitable funding and equal opportunity. This case led to the establishment of what we all know as the Robin Hood plan. This too has its many flaws. We obviously have not achieved equity and equality, but this was another major event in Texas school finance.

My third choice for a major event in Texas school finance is the Gilmer-Aiken Act of 1949. This act established the Minimum Foundations Program in which funding for education comes from both state and local sources. This was the first comprehensive framework for our school finance system.

There are many issues impacting the current state formula.  In my opinion, the main issue leading to improper funding is the fact that about half of a school district’s funding comes from local funds.  These are mostly in the form of property taxes.  If every region in the state was exactly the same and properties were evaluated as being equal everywhere, then maybe it would not be so bad.  However, it is obvious that some areas have property values that vastly differ from other areas.  Sometimes these differences can be just across a city or county line.  When school districts tax these unequal properties they are going to get unequal funding.  This is an injustice to our educational funding system.  Even through recapture, it still is an unfair system.  Another issue impacting the state formula is where our funds come from.  We depend greatly on the state and federal government and, as we have begun to see, without them we may not be able to fund our schools properly.  If there is another solution where we do not have to be as dependent on the state and federal governments for funding, it would help ensure our financial security.  The final issue impacting the state formula is the fact that many districts need different amounts of funding based upon their unique setting.  There may be a rural school district that has a smaller class size ratio, maybe one with a larger than normal number of special education students, maybe one with a large low socioeconomic rate, etc.  This list could go on and on, but the point remains each district is unique and special unto itself.  Each district should be funded that way.  There are some areas where they try to compensate for the disparities, but there is no perfect system.  I think that may be the biggest realization going through this course thus far – we do not have a fair system and it needs an overhaul, but no system is perfect.  When they do eventually come up with a better idea for school funding there will still be flaws in it.  I just hope it is much closer to being an equal and equitable system.

The Unethical Leader

Through this week's assignment I heard several stories about unethical administrators.  We are in a sad state when those that have chosen to be servant leaders are only serving themselves.  How can we build trust with our stakeholders when stories like those continue?  How can we teach respect, honor, and pride to our students when the leaders have little to none?  Our educational system needs an overhaul if we expect anything to change.  We must hold everyone accountable for their actions, including those in charge.  If there is wrong-doing or unethical practices, we should take away their certificates and prosecute when possible.  Instead our current system just passes the problem to another district.