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| Reallocating Resources for School Improvement - Guiding Principles for Allocating Resources |
- Use staff efficiently and be consistent with the priorities in the school improvement plan.
- Consider time as the most expensive resource.
- Use community resources when possible.
- Devote resources to the prevention of academic problems, rather than to remediation.
- Organize instructional time to support the school's instructional focus.
- Incorporate time for professional development and teacher collaboration into the daily life of the school
- Use staff efficiently and be consistent with the priorities in the school improvement plan.
Once the cost of a position has been established, the decision can be made as to whether or not that money is being spent effectively. For example, are teachers used to walk elementary students to and from buses and to monitor playgrounds or cafeterias? Would this time be used more effectively for teacher preparation/planning or collaboration with other grade level teachers if that is a priority in the school improvement plan? Could paraprofessionals do these kinds of tasks? Are two categories of paraprofessionals needed: those who work in classrooms under the direction of the teacher and those who perform the kinds of tasks described above. Is the task performed what someone at that salary level should be doing, taking into consideration education required, complexity of task, legal liability, and market analysis.
Hear about: Two effective staffing strategies achieved through reallocation.
Hear about: What happens when a school has to pay the bills.
Hear about: How one Houston principal said ?no? to the copier company and increased his teachers productivity.
- Consider time as the most expensive resource.
Does the school improvement plan require that teachers be provided with time to participate in professional development, to collaborate on student progress, to plan lessons and units that incorporate re-teaching and enrichment? If so, a considerable expense is involved. To provide this kind of time for teachers, the use of staff, both professional and paraprofessional, and the school's schedule will have to be reconsidered.
Hear about: How one Cincinnati high school was able to increase instructional time in the core subjects through reallocation (Suess-3).
Hear about: Rearranging teacher time and staff to support teaching and learning (Speakman-5).
Many schools are now scheduling common planning time for those teachers who work in teams, either grade level or discipline specific. For common planning time to be effective, it needs to be scheduled in blocks of ninety minutes, and the organization of the school must promote teacher collaboration so that the time is used effectively. (Miles & Darling-Hammond, 1997)
To provide teachers in the academic areas of reading, mathematics, science, and social studies (including teachers of students with special needs) with blocks of common planning time, several approaches might be considered.
If the teacher day is seven hours and the student day is six hours (both inclusive of lunch), teachers could have fifteen minutes before school and forty-five minutes at the end of the day for teacher common planning time rather than thirty minutes before school and thirty minutes after school. Little can be accomplished in thirty minutes If the forty-five minutes at the end of the day can be added to another forty-five minute period immediately preceding it for at least three days a week, then teachers have the ninety-minute blocks needed for common planning.
Another approach is to have larger class sizes for specialist subjects (art, music, physical education) by combining academic classes if union contracts permit. The teachers whose classes are combined have time together to plan. Specialist teachers could also supervise student activities, such as internships, community service blocks, and theme projects, freeing the academic teachers for planning together.
Developing a schedule for common planning time is only half of the task. It is useless to provide the time unless the organizational structure of the school places accountability for results of a specific group of students on a specific group of professional staff members. That is, teams of teachers and perhaps support personnel must have a group of students for whom they are responsible in order for them to have a common purpose and thus a need for common planning time. If teachers work autonomously, then there is no reason for them to have common planning time. (Schmoker, 1996)
- Use community resources when possible.
Resources in close proximity to the school may be used to provide services to children without spending school money. Is there a neighborhood branch of the public library close by? Could that be used in lieu of a school library? Is there a recreation center with facilities that far exceed what the school can offer in the gym? Is it nearby and available at no cost? Can social service agencies provide services in the school to those eligible so that school money spent on social workers can be used in other ways? Who else can provide after-school programs or special tutoring services at no charge? The involvement of the greater community in the life of the school has benefits far beyond saving resources. It provides the school with advocates who may bring in many other services to the students.
- Devote resources to the prevention of academic problems, rather than to remediation.
It is much cheaper to intervene immediately when a student doesn't learn the outcomes for a particular lesson than to wait until the problem is compounded and then attempt to intervene. Staff should be organized to maximize individual attention for all students in the focus academic areas. Specialized programs which segregate specific groups of students and teachers are minimized. This is where the ability to co-mingle funds becomes so important. Title 1 has provided this kind of flexibility since the late 1980's when 'school-wide? programs were allowed.
Hear about: How control over his budget allowed one Houston principal to offer Saturday school to serve an at-risk population (Castro-1).
- Organize instructional time to support the school's instructional focus.
If the focus of the school improvement plan is to improve reading scores, then reading should be taught in the morning, not in the late afternoon. Many reform models, such as Success for All, require ninety-minute blocks of uninterrupted time for reading. This requires scheduling the block at the beginning or end of the day.
- Incorporate time for professional development and teacher collaboration into the daily life of the school.
In order for new knowledge and skills to be transferred to the classroom, professional development must provide theory, demonstration, practice, and peer coaching. Peers helping peers, mutual study and problem solving, and observing other professionals work all provide valuable learning experiences and all require teacher time during the school day. (Joyce & Showers, 2002)
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