- Ernest Hemingway STEAM School
- Homepage
Draft Budget Goes to Board
Superintendent Proposes Budget That Continues to Focus on Equity
The expectations for students are high. Teachers are working hard to help students meet the expectations for state and federal standards for learning outcomes as well as the community’s request for robust classes and class sizes that are over and above the funding provided by the State of Idaho. Our community also holds high expectations for our students. The proposed budget continues the district’s focus on equity which means that resources follow students and meet student needs.
Through staff reallocation and the addition of four overall teaching positions, the Superintendent proposes a budget that continues to focus on equity and support students in areas of greatest need such as Special Education, English Language Learning, reading and math.
Teacher Voice
Teachers were surveyed and asked how they learn best and what is most valuable for improving their teaching practice. The three highest responses indicated that teachers value seeing best practices in action, small group workshops and time to collaborate with their peers while using data to improve their practice. In order to give teachers this resource and support them in the classroom, the Superintendent proposes hiring additional positions in math and reading.
Passage of the Supplemental Levy allowed the District to add these positions without taking away from existing classes and class size allocations that are over and above the funding provided by the State of Idaho.
Funding Allocation Formula Prevents Bias and Helps Ensure Equity
For three years, the District has implemented a funding allocation formula that ensures funding follows students and supports students with additional needs in Special Education, English Language Learning and Gifted and Talented Education.
Memo to the Board
April 9, 2018
TO: Blaine County School District Board of Trustees
FROM: GwenCarol Holmes, Ed.D., Superintendent and Bryan Fletcher, Finance Manager
TOPIC: Budget Overview for 2018-19
Background:
The District is in its second year of a budget in which revenues and expenditures balance without using reserves to cover a portion of expenses. This accomplishment has resulted in approximately $1.3 million and $1.2 million in reductions respectively over the past two years. The majority of the savings in these two years of reductions have been at the district level, as efforts were made to minimize the impact on classrooms.
Voter approval of a Supplemental Levy of $2.99 million per year for the next two years, with a reduction of the Plant Facilities Levy by $2.99 million per year for the remaining two years will allow the District to continue to provide a wide array of student offerings over and above minimum state requirements as expected by its community stakeholders while accelerating the work to close the Achievement Gap or ensuring all students are meeting literacy and math standards. Without these additional funds, significant reductions would be required from the over and above offerings.
A sampling of the offerings over and above the state requirements at the elementary level include preschool classes, all-day kindergarten, additional reading teachers and specialists for art, music, physical education, instructional technology, and engineering. At the secondary level over and above programs include athletics, a wide array of performing and visual arts, a wide array of Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes, world languages, a wide array of Advanced Placement (AP) and Dual Credit classes, an Alternative high school, and one-on-one technology deployment. District-wide over and above offerings include smaller class sizes (relative to the State of Idaho), additional counselors and social workers, Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) teachers, additional English Language Development teachers, transportation services beyond the minimum requirements, current technology for instruction and robust security features in each school. BCSD staff are provided with ongoing professional development opportunities at the District, building and individual level as well.
This plethora of opportunities provided over and above by the District is reflected in the District’s position allocation, which remain significantly above the state allocation, and is predicted to remain relatively the same for the 2018-19 school year.
Blaine County School District General Fund Staffing Levels
Fiscal Year 2017-2018 |
|
# of State Funded Full Time Equivalency |
# of Actual Full Time Equivalency |
|
# Over the State Funding Level |
Instructional or Certified Staff |
171 |
257 |
86 |
||
Pupil Services |
13 |
22 |
9 |
||
Non-Certified Staff |
62 |
123 |
61 |
||
Administrative Staff |
12 |
15 |
3 |
||
* All values are rounded |
|
|
Our mission is to inspire, engage, educate and empower every student.
Projected Fiscal Year 2018- 2019 |
# of State Funded
Full Time Equivalency |
# of Actual
Full Time Equivalency |
# Over the State
Funding Level |
Instructional or Certified Staff |
171 |
261 |
90 |
Pupil Services |
13 |
22 |
9 |
Non-Certified Staff |
62 |
125 |
63 |
Administrative Staff |
12 |
15 |
3 |
* All values are rounded |
District enrollment has continued to grow slightly at 1 to 1.5% per year over the past several years, with a total enrollment (PreK to 12) on November 3, 2017 of 3,477 students. The demographics of BCSD students have been changing at a more rapid rate than enrollment with Hispanic students now accounting for 42%, English Language Learners 19%, students with special needs 11%, GATE 7%, and homeless student numbers almost tripling at 1.4% of the student body.
Information:
General Fund
Revenues to serve a projected enrollment of 3,394 students (K to 12) for which state funds are received and 3,490 students total (PreK to 12) in 2018-19 (virtually no change from the current year) is partially dependent on the Board’s guidance on how to expend the recently approved Supplemental Levy of $2.99 million per year for the next two years. Does the Board advise expending all supplemental levy revenues in the two-year time frame or advise trying to stretch the revenues for a longer period of time? The pace at which the revenues are expended must be balanced with the Board’s commitment to the recommended uses of the supplemental levy as proposed at the January 16, 2018 meeting:
- Maintain robust class offerings such as elementary specials (art, music, P.E., engineering technology) and secondary offerings of robotics, World Languages, music, construction trades, drama, visual arts, computer science, etc.
- Accelerate the district’s work to close the Achievement Gap and address growing enrollment of students needing additional support in English language, elementary reading, special education, GATE, and secondary math.
- Retain and recruit the best staff with a compensation package that allows them to live in Blaine County and recognizes their contributions to students. This would include a modest amount for salaries.
- Address a few smaller unfunded objectives from the Strategic Plan such as the community’s expectation for outdoor education at the middle grades.
District administration, in accordance with the Board’s Guiding Principles for the 2018-19 budget development is drafting a budget that:
- Develops a budget that balances revenues and expenditures while maintaining reserves.
- Prioritizes and provides equity in resources to ensure all students meet and exceed standards by addressing focus areas in the Strategic Plan (improve achievement for students not at proficiency in literacy and/or mathematics).
- Maintain District commitment to its Class Size Policy which values small classes.
- Implement additional Strategic Plan objectives as resources allow.
Items “1” to “4” above contain the Board’s direction for the use of a Supplemental Levy. Items “a” to “d” above indicated the Board’s prioritization for use of budget dollars with or without a Supplemental Levy. In other words, without a Supplemental Levy the first priorities would be to maintain a balanced budget and address the needs of students who have not yet met the standards, especially in literacy and math. Without the Supplemental Levy, there would have been significant reductions and reallocation of positions in order to balance the budget and prioritize the work of ensuring all students at least meet the standards as expected by our community, the State of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Education. Voters’ approval of the Supplemental Levy enables the District to balance the budget and provide additional resources for closing the gap for students not meeting standards while also maintaining the over and above programming that is a hallmark of the education our students receive in BCSD.
The updated BCSD Strategic Plan and in particular the areas of focus as proposed for the 2018-19 school year continues to follow the Board’s directive to strive towards ensuring all students meet or exceed State of Idaho Standards, especially in literacy and mathematics. As noted in this update the District is making good progress on reading at grades K to 2. Much of this progress is due to classroom teachers working collaboratively with their peers across the District with the guidance of the District’s Lead Reading Teacher to better understand the reading expectations with the new standards for students in grades K to 2 and modify instruction to reach all students in the classroom. The Lead Reading Teacher is able to facilitate the type of learning teachers say they want: observing exemplary classrooms, small group workshops, and collaborating with peers to analyze data and plan instruction. This feedback came from a survey of teachers conducted in February 2018.
It is also noted that even with the dedication and commitment of our educators, little progress is being made in elementary reading outcomes at grades 3 to 5 and mathematics, especially secondary mathematics outcomes. The difficulty of the work of BCSD educators has increased significantly over the past five years. Standards for learning have changed at the state level so that the expectations for what students are to know and do at each of the grade level is much greater than in the past. In addition, the student demographics changing most rapidly in BCSD are the increase in students with special needs, English Language Learners, and students in poverty. These students are most certainly capable of meeting and exceeding the standards, but often need additional supports to do so within the time frame of a PreK to 12 education.
However, the work being done and the progress made with K-2 reading outcomes assures us that this difficult work can be done if we are willing to continue to use our data to improve our practice. The modifications made to the 2018-19 proposed budget are intensely focused on ensuring all students meet at least the minimum standards, the State of Idaho standards in literacy and mathematics and based on the successful work that is happening in reading at grades K to 2.
As in previous years, the District continues to use formulas to assign positions to schools to ensure distribution is fair and unbiased. Formulas for classroom teachers are based on a divisor for the ideal number of students per class. Formulas for support positions (special education, reading, English Language Development, etc.) are weighted on student need such as the total number of minutes students receive special education services, percentage of students not meeting reading benchmarks, and the percentage of students not yet proficient in English, etc. Primary changes from previous years in the 2018-19 draft budget that meet these principles include:
- Reallocate and/or add a minimal number of teacher positions to better support areas of focus: elementary reading, secondary math, English Language Development (ELD), and students with special needs. This includes
- 2 additional ELD teachers
- 1 Special Education Teacher
- 1 Teacher on Special Assignment* for Secondary Mathematics
- 1 Teacher on Special Assignment* for Elementary Reading, Grades 3 to 5 (Total of +5 FTE)
- Continue to allocate certified Full Time Equivalent (FTE) at the elementary level using a divisor of 18/class for grades K to 2 and 23 for grades 3 to 5. (Results in 1 FTE reduction at the elementary level)
- Continue to allocate certified FTE at the middle school level using a divisor of 23/class period. (Results in 2.5 FTE increase at the middle school level)
- Allocate certified FTE at the high school level using a divisor of 24/class period, rather than the previous 23. (Results in a 2.5 FTE reduction)
- Total change in teacher FTE of 4.0. (5-1+2.5-2.5= 4)
- Use a formula for allocating social workers as previously requested by Trustees. The formula is based on enrollment and weighted for percentage of students qualifying for free/reduced price meals, homelessness, and 504 plans.
- Maintain and/or reallocate current District staffing for administration and classified positions.
- Reallocate one administrator FTE to .5 Vice Principal for Hailey Elementary and .5 Program Coordinator from 1.0 FTE Program Coordinator. The .5 VP at Hailey Elementary will primarily provide additional administrator support required for the Special Education programs and English Language Development. As a result of this reduction at the administrator level, the District’s Teaching and Learning Team will need to decrease district-level support to schools for preschool, GATE, DI, STEAM, and summer programming. Requests for support with curriculum and/or assessments revisions in content years not up for review in the current cycle may need to be put on hold until that specific content area comes up for review in the course of the normal cycle.
- Maintain flat building and department budgets outside of any staff compensation increases.
- Allocate funds for staff compensation based on step increases built into salary schedules. Projected General Fund revenues for the 2018-19 school year without the supplemental levy funds are $52,110,000 excluding contingency funding. Projected General Fund expenses for the 2018-19 school year without any Cost of Living Adjustments or health insurance costs are $52,700,000 excluding the contingency reserve.
*The District currently has one Teacher on Special Assignment --the Lead Reading Teacher who works with all K-2 classrooms supporting reading instruction. District indicates that progress is being made at these grade levels in improving student outcomes in reading. The proposed two Teachers on Special Assignment would work in a very similar fashion: modeling exemplary teaching, co-teaching with teachers as they implement new strategies, facilitate data analysis and instructional planning, etc.)
Fiscal Stewardship:
The District continues to make judicious decisions about how to use its limited resources. There were many requests for additional positions and program funding. From all of these requests, only those most likely to accelerate proficiency for all students on the Idaho State Content Standards were included in the budget. Positions continue to be reallocated as much as possible.
Plant Facilities:
The Plant Facilities budget will provide the funds to continue to pay an additional $5,440,000 on the debt as well as provide $1,300,000 in funds for building maintenance and $1,000,000 for technology.
Unassigned Fund Balance:
The Unassigned Fund Balance Policy 815 was passed by the Board of Trustees in 2016. In 2017, the Board of Trustees moved $2,000,000 from the Land Lottery Fund to begin funding this Unassigned Fund Balance. Administration does not recommend General Fund monies be used at this time to continue to build the Unassigned Fund Balance. However, should the District be able to sell any of its properties not needed for current or future District operations, the proceeds from these transactions should be considered for the Unassigned Fund Balance.