Tools For Understanding District Level Finances

Many variables contribute to the revenues and expenditures of a school district's budget. While a district budget is complex, resources are available to assist in understanding the budgeting process.

1.) ASBR

Every district submits an Annual Secretary of the Board Report. The reports detail all revenues, expenditures, and fund balances for the year. Every district in the state uses the same budget codes and the reports are structured identically. The ASBR's help understand previous year's revenues and expenditures, which provides valuable context.

2.) Calculation Tools

To help predict future revenues, DESE provides calculation spreadsheets. To complete the data entry portion, it is helpful to have the district's county district code (available on the ASBR). Completion also requires knowing enrollment, free and reduced lunch, ELL, and special education data, all available through the DESE's data management tool. The spreadsheet will provide estimates for basic formula, classroom trust, proposition c and other revenues. 

3.) MASA Resources

The professional organization has helpful presentations and calculators. 

4.) Budget Spreadsheet

The DESE calculators help predict revenues. A rudimentary spreadsheet can help predict expenditures. Elementary and secondary eduction, transportation, facilities and operations, and all other areas of the district have personnel, supply, and purchased services expenses. 

Revenue variables to consider:

-Changes to the state adequacy target (SAT) which is set by DESE

-Appropriations are often greater than actual transfers

-Annual real estate assessments and actual collections affect local revenues

Expenditure variables to consider:

-Increased district contributions to employee retirement due to implementation of salary schedule
-Increased district contributions to employee health insurance

-Utility and insurance increases

-Fuel increases for transportation

-Effects of retirement on overall salary expenditures

Easy Stolen Ideas For A Fun Faculty Meeting

"The schools that celebrated authentically on a regular basis created a great atmosphere for collegiality.  Collegiality is not collaboration, but having colleagues who genuinely like and respect one another creates an atmosphere ripe for collaboration."
-Anthony Muhammad, Transforming School Culture


Anthony Muhammad links healthy adult relationships to student academic achievement. Anyone who has worked in a school knows that sometimes April can be a month that strains those relationships. Our school recently had a Friday afternoon faculty meeting that ended with laughter, which is sometimes in short supply in April.

Three, easy to replicate ideas were part of the meeting....along with candy and music. All of these ideas were stolen. I've done my best to give credit to the source.

1.) Chart the year (stolen from Ginny Vanderlicht of the Hook Center): A sheet of butcher paper was hung on the wall horizontally. The left side represented August and the right side represented April. A line was drawn through the middle horizontally. Teachers had six post its, and they posted notes about three highs and three lows through the year. The higher or lower the moment was, the higher or lower it went on the sheet. What's great about this is often folks struggle to come up with three lows and a lot of the highs will be recent. A visual picture of a school getting happier is created. Music was played and candy was eaten while moments were charted.

2.) Argys (stolen from Wendy Lentz): Kind of like the grammys, but with an "arg" sound, like a pirate, our mascot, makes...get it. Teachers nominated and voted for each other for fun awards such as who do you hope brings snacks to the work room, who do you hope checks on you on a bad day etc. A copy of the form can be found here.

3.) Everyone wins bingo (stolen from Scott Friedman, a really funny presenter at MASA): The faculty meeting closed with a game of bingo, which was rigged so that everyone won at the same time. Winners received a soda and a fee pass to leave early for the day. A copy of everyone wins bingo with the call order can be found here. 

Hearing everyone yell "Bingo" at the same time is pretty awesome.

Forty Good Fridays

In my late teens and early twenties I would spend Sunday mornings studying a cracked sanctuary wall. The crack ran behind a wooden cross, which had warped ever so slightly as the building settled and stressed.

It seemed the cross held it all together.

During those Sundays, particularly around Easter, I wrestled with questions. The brutality of the cross and the mystery of the resurrection challenged me. Once, my pastor, a man whose wisdom and perseverance in faith moves me still, told me "Troy, I don't have all the answers. I'm not even aware of the questions." At the time, his acceptance of  mystery perplexed and frustrated me.

I thought by my fortieth Good Friday, I would have more figured out, but it doesn't seem to be the case. The mysteries of faith are still mysteries to me- I question like Thomas.

However, as time has passed, I find myself perplexed but less frustrated. The cross is still brutal, but I realize more and more that the world is too. And it is unjust and lacking in selfless love. If there is any justice or unconditional love, I find it only in the cross. Time has given me opportunity to consider this.

Time has also given me opportunity to share life with folks who have been transformed by The Gospel.

I carry the image of an elderly man in Southeast Kansas with weathered skin who labored each Sunday up the steps to the pulpit to say, "Let's stand and praise the lord." His words delivered with the clipped accent of the reservations near by, he led the congregation in the Doxology with striking gentleness.

At a Methodist Christmas Eve service in Arkansas, a pastor, whose body bounced during hymns and face smiled during the homily, placed a piece of bread in my daughter's mouth as I held her in my arms. He looked into her dark eyes and said, "Eat this and think about Jesus." He was joy filled.

Lately on Sundays, I find myself spending my mornings with a woman who is blind. Every Sunday she is first to volunteer to read scripture and there is a power and peace that resonates from the braille, through her hands, to her voice.

And for four years I had a unique perspective to watch a tribe of twenty somethings, who often looked like they crawled out of tents at a music festival, step out daring acts of faith, turning ashes into glory for kids in foster care. To me they will always personify the greatest, Love.

I enjoy the company and fellowship I find in all stripes of communities, but the encouragement and inspiration I find among believers is unique.

Those who know me best know all the ways my walk is flawed and my faith is fragile. My Thomas faith still wrestles with questions, but I am still compelled.

With this Thomas faith I will pause on Friday, and with it I will wait with anticipation for Sunday.

Culture Making, Pancakes, and a New Principal

Five years ago I borrowed a copy of Andy Crouch's Culture Making from a friend. The book explores the ways people of faith have impacted culture throughout history. Its pages survey art, architecture, history, and religion. I enjoyed reading the book and discussing its ideas with my wife and friends. Five years later, after completing my first year as a principal, I can't help but reflect on the ways the book influenced my view of leadership.

Here are four takeaways from the book that are worth considering.

1.) We should all be engaged in the act of making, not criticizing, culture.
2.) Real culture making occurs at the level of individual relationships.
3.) The most valuable culture making is motivated by concern for, and a desire to elevate, the most vulnerable.
4.) Food is important. Crouch's love of omelettes and lentils serve as personal illustrations of his micro level culture making.

I'm often guilty of stretching intellectual arguments for activities that are mostly for fun, but I think Culture Making justifies one of my favorite practices, making chocolate chip pancakes to celebrate the achievements, large and small, of students.  Favorite breakfasts include new students and the students who made special efforts to make them feel welcome. My vision of an effective school is one that functions much like a family. I'm not sure how effective I am at steering culture school wide, but I hope the pancake breakfasts help point the rudder in the right direction.

Many voices offer advice to school leaders on shaping culture. Culture Making places the need for culture makers in a broader historical context, making the work even more essential. Crouch, who holds a Master of Divinity from Boston University, makes the case in a way that is intellectually and spiritually stimulating. 

Why I Love Quiz Bowl

I've always been a fan of quiz bowl, but my appreciation has been growing for more than a few reasons.

First, while I love the passion and enthusiasm of fans at sporting events, it's a little refreshing to be at a contest where the spectators are required to be silent.

Secondly, the qualities that make for a good quiz bowl competitor are in short supply in our culture. A good quiz bowler has to know stuff. Increasingly our society seems to reject the idea that it is helpful to know facts. More and more we reward ignorance from folks who enjoy putting their ignorance on full display. Also, a good quiz bowler needs to be curious. Curiosity is a trait that is in short supply. In spite of the level of ignorance, we see folks rising in prominence who apparently believe they know it all. A dedicated quiz bowler is constantly seeking to increase their knowledge. More than anything, I appreciate quiz bowl because in quiz bowl knowledge is power. Correct answers and correct answers only score points, and while I do know of an instance of a fourteen year old girl bullying a judge into giving her a point, volume and bravado are typically not rewarded.

I have hopes that our society will self correct and begin to value knowledge and competency over ignorance and noise, but at the rate we are going there may be too few knowledgeable and competent folks left.

A time may soon come when quiz bowlers are society's only hope.

My Dad. Congrats on Retirement!

With Dad at my wedding reception.

When I was five, my dad's job had my kindergarten teacher in the principal's office going through my file, trying to figure out where he worked. When given the opportunity to share with our kindergarten classmates where our parents worked, I responded, "My dad works at the monkey farm!"

Then I proceeded to jump around the room with my best Curious George imitation. 

At the time Dad worked at Sinclair Research Farm, part of the UM system. The farm conducted medical research and used monkeys as subjects. During the week Dad served as Sinclair's maintenance man. On weekends, he was it's tour guide. He would load me up in his Ford pickup with rusted out floor boards and take me to see the monkeys. In my kindergarten mind, my dad worked at the monkey farm....and your dad's job sounds boring.

Thirty seven years later, Dad is retiring.

Sinclair closed long ago and Dad was reassigned to dorm maintenance. Not long afterward he applied and took a position with energy management as a TAB (testing and balancing air) technician. In the last decade the landscape of MU has changed a great deal and Dad has been a part of all of it, working to ensure the heating and cooling systems work efficiently. 

I love my dad, and I owe my dad a lot. 

Over the past three years, I've spent a lot of Saturdays taking graduate classes in the third floor of Hill Hall. The windows on the West side of Hill, overlook the power plant where Dad clocked out for the final time. My dad spent almost forty years on campus without ever taking a class. But as I looked out the windows on Saturdays I thought about all he taught me about work.

-Show up early: If I got up early, and I mean EARLY, enough I might catch Dad finishing a cup of coffee and his morning Bible study. Dad was going to be one of the first in.

-Treat people right: One of the things I respect about my dad most is the way he respects others: supervisors, coworkers, folks he supervised. Everyone. Dad, never cared about football until this past summer when one of his student assistants was the starting kicker for the team. This fall he took interest in how the team is did, but mostly on field goals and PAT's.

-Leave it at work: Over the course of his career, I'm sure Dad had a few rough days at work, but what I remember is him getting out of the truck, taking his lunch box and thermos to the kitchen, doing farm chores and then being Dad. Work didn't follow him home. I wish my kids could say that. 

-Show up to work: Dad worked. He clocked out before Thanksgiving with enough time on the books to take a vacation until February, despite the fact that he's had two hip replacements. Dad's supervisors and coworkers knew they could count on him to honor his commitments. 

For the first time in thirty seven years Dad doesn't have to show up to work anymore. He's earned a well deserved break, which he's been spending serving his family.

On behalf of the family, I say, Dad, feel free take some time for you. 

You've earned it. 

The view from Hill Hall

Buzzer Beater

"How hard would it be to call a fifth foul on one of those kids?"

I asked the question to myself as opposing players were introduced at a junior high boy's game. The host team only had five players total. As farms get bigger and families get smaller, population decline in rural areas creates interesting dynamics in schools. Two of the players on the team were girls.

Soon it was evident that the opposing point guard- pony tail and all- was an athlete. Her crossover kept defenders off balance and her passes to team mates were crisp, although most times they quickly passed it back to her. She had the best shot on the team, maybe on both teams.

The game was lopsided early, but there was an element of suspense. How would she hold up for four quarters?

I've used this space before to highlight how small schools are good for kids because each one is known and valued. Obviously a basketball team with only five members must value each kid, regardless of ability. But this extends beyond the team and even beyond the school.

Small communities are great about knowing and valuing each other's kids. You want your school to come out on top, but over the course of the seasons you get to know the names on the other rosters pretty well, and you wish them the best too.

This game was the perfect example. Throughout the game both teams' fans held their breath each time the point guard shot. Late in the game when it looked like she might be injured after a collision, both sets of fans expressed concern and applauded when she resumed play.

With less than a minute left, the Norborne Pirates led by more than thirty. The point guard had scored all but one of her team's points. As the final second ticked off the clock she threw up a three pointer. When it fell through the net, she was the game's leading scorer.

Everyone applauded.