While it may sound odd, the most important part of this budget model is the involvement of the school district’s non-finance leaders. Without commitments from the academic leader and the district administrator to connect the financial work with its academic impacts, we would simply be trying to impose an idea and thought process on the rest of the organization without a deeper understanding of the “why” behind the approach.
Thankfully, these two individuals also attended the conference in Chicago, where they gained insight into the culture-changing potential of this model. Our director of curriculum and instruction immediately correlated the tenets of this budgeting model with the tenets of the literacy model she was working to implement. The way these two models mirrored each other created an immediate connection between the academic leader of our district and the Smarter School Spending framework.
Figure 1. Smarter School Spending Framework
Connecting Finance with Outcomes
One of the basic tenets of the Smarter School Spending model is to connect the district finances to the strategic plan and intended outcomes. I will admit, at the time we were trying to implement this model, that was a struggle for us. We were in the middle of a five-year strategic plan and assumed the model was linear, given the framework and steps that are outlined (see Figure 1).
We were unsure where to begin and how to connect the model to our current strategic plan short of building them together, but we were eager to implement the model’s philosophies. We directed our administrative team to implement certain elements without fully understanding the reasoning behind them. This resulted in a false start; we had to reset our approach.
Rather than acting as financial advisor to the administrative team, I became a facilitator of conversation and strategy. Recognizing that building administrators make decisions that affect schools and our day-to-day operations, which ultimately lead to teaching, learning, and financial priorities at a building level, prompted our senior leadership team to cultivate their support of this model.
My role then shifted to providing the data other leaders in our district needed to make decisions; sharing my views as the “keeper of the money”; inspiring their curiosity as a way to drive their discussions and desire to learn more; and encouraging cognitive conflict among the team to advance their learning and decision making.
All of this was done with the goal that everyone on the administrative team understands their link to instructional priorities and supports the financial recommendations proposed to the board of education and community.
Finding Small Wins
To address our false start with the model, we looked for some “small wins” to show the impact this model could have. For example, we attempted to centralize the budget functions in areas where building leaders are not necessarily experts, such as facilities, technology, and professional development planning.
Although centralizing some building budget funds initially created a bit of trepidation among our building leaders, they quickly saw its benefits. They could supply entire grade levels with Chromebooks rather than spending leftover budget dollars on a handful of devices. They could spend time on instruction rather than time ordering paper products for the restrooms. Building staff members would now be receiving the same professional development as other district staff members.
We also shifted staff according to student needs. That way, rather than building leaders trying to make do with the staff in their building, they could pull in qualified staff from around the district.
All of these “small wins” began to build a culture in which all district resources were everyone’s resources to leverage, and discussions outside of building/department silos provided resources to match student needs.
Our goal is to leverage all district resources through open, honest conversations.
As this culture continued to build, we saw the need to formalize how we operated this model, so we established monthly two-hour meetings of the entire administrative team. These Resourcing Student Success meetings address finance-related issues as well as issues related to all other areas of the district, whether that be school improvement plans and how to shift resources to meet the goals or student achievement data and what resources could be leveraged for improvement.
These meetings are facilitated by a Resourcing Governance Team comprised of me, the district administrator, the director of instruction, the director of pupil services and special education, and the director of human resources. Our goal is to leverage all district resources through open, honest conversations.
Figure 2. The School District of Fort Atkinson’s (WI) strategic goal areas.
A Change in Culture
During the past eight years, we have seen tremendous growth in our leadership team’s understanding of the connection between district resources, our students, and our strategic plan goals (see Figure 2). The implementation of the Smarter School Spending model framework is a culture change, and it will be messy at times, but it has fundamentally guided how our team understands finances and their impacts.
Every administrator in our district can now speak meaningfully about our decisions and our financial situation. As school business officials we are experts in our area, but having others in the district who can speak intelligently and confidently to stakeholders about finances builds a high level of trust inside and outside of the organization.
We will never be finished implementing this model in our district, as it is meant to continually build upon itself and adapt to any situation the district may be facing.