Time for a Break

Most weeks, this blog post comes out like clockwork. The goal is to have something ready to publish by the end of the day on Wednesday, and with a few exceptions I have been able to meet that goal. Each week, twelve months out of the school year. That's not to say each week I have something earth shattering to share, or even a post that is all that good. The whole point is that I think it is important that the community hear from the superintendent every week. Part of my reasoning is to provide as much transparency as possible to you, and also to share my opinions on a variety of school related topics. Other weeks, I may write a piece that explains how a particular policy proposal may impact our school. 

Some weeks I think I have something interesting to say and others are quite a struggle. But what continues to surprise me is that, when I think I have produced a flop, you may have really liked it. The inverse is also true. I may think I've hit a homerun only to learn that my post wasn't all that popular! 

Over the course of the last year a lot of the posts in this column have focused on the impact of the pandemic and our response to COVID. It has only been in recent months that some of the topics have begun to shift to what normally 'ebbs and flows' with the school year. But even then, just like a bad penny the pandemic is just below the surface. The good news is the light is at the end of the tunnel and it grows brighter with each passing day. We continue to loosen up restrictions in the district and return to more normalized operations. Another sign of normal came this last weekend when we hosted prom. Although it didn't look like normal I think the students had a great time. We have also announced the return to in person music concerts for the final performances of the year and graduation is right around the corner. I suspect sometime over the summer the school board will rescind the emergency proclamation that was enacted on March 23, 2020. For certain this action will be likely be seen as more symbolic than anything but will no doubt mark an important milestone-and really boost our spirits! 

This brings me finally to my point for today. For those who are weekly readers, I am taking a two to three week break from the blog. Don't fret though, it'll be back soon! When this column returns in a few weeks, we'll be on the eve of graduation! I'll look forward to sharing with you my final words of advice to the Class of 2021. We'll talk more about our budgeting process, but with a focus on expenditures. I'll also have plenty of new insights and videos from Jamie Vollmer's Schools Can't Do it Alone network. Finally, I am eager to share with our community members and future employees exactly what it is we are looking for in employees and how our candidate pool is developed. Indeed, a lot to cover beginning this summer! 

For now I'm signing off. See you in a few weeks! Oh, and please when you get a chance to be vaccinated I hope you take advantage!

The Blend of Property Tax, State Aid and Federal Stimulus

As discussed a few weeks back, our budgeting evolution is a multi-month process that includes modeling and forecasting our future spending patterns, enrollment trends, and taxable valuation. Another important feature of budget development is determining the blend of state aid and property tax. In Iowa, we use a tool known as the Aid and Levy worksheet. Running around 8 pages at roughly 430 lines, the aid and levy is for all practical purposes the formula that determines the annual revenue stream for school districts. It is also a tool designed to reduce property taxes under an equitable formula. I would argue the aid and levy is the primary reason lawsuits that have been attempted to call into question Iowa's funding formula have failed. Granted, there are no perfect funding solutions for public education! But I would argue ours does a pretty decent job. I say that with caution and sincerity while at the same time stating unequivocally: there are areas for improvement. But that would be getting way too deep into the weeds for our purposes!

Luckily these days the aid and levy work can be finished with just a few inputs. Granted, these are very important inputs that we need to carefully consider and really know what we are doing, but by completing a handful of calculations the 8 page document is largely complete. (Back in 'superintendent school' we had to complete each individual calculation by hand. It took hours and hours of time over a several week period. Ah, the wonders of modern technology-and excel!)

So the question must be: what is the blend of local property taxes and state aid? As the chart to the left here indicates, just over 39% of our revenue comes from local property tax whereas the largest bulk of our revenue is derived from state aid. As you can also see, a very small fraction of our operating capital is derived from federal sources. Most of our federal revenue is dedicated to our special education program and Title services. In our school district, the most common title service that you may have heard of is Title 1 reading. 

However, this current year and next we will be receiving quite a bit more in federal funding due to COVID relief. Where the chart above depicts those federal funds at approximately $190,000; we will also see an infusion of federal funds of over $660,000, with the expectation those funds are expended by September 30, 2023. It is important to know these funds can't be used for just anything, but we do have pretty broad authority with which to operate. A portion of the funding will be dedicated to making up the learning loss from last spring, which is the reason we are planning a summer school program for this summer (and how we are going to pay for it). The school board is currently deliberating how best to maximize these dollars so we can get the best return on our investment. 

We Take Them All. No Matter What.

In Jamie Vollmer's latest video installment, he shares his famous 'Blueberry Story'. In it, he describes an eye opening moment with us about how he came to be one of public schools fiercest advocates. It is through his interaction with a high school English teacher during a presentation that he transitioned from a public education critic to an ally. The story is quite humorous, but drives home an important and often overlooked point when it comes to our public school system: we don't get to choose our students. We take them all. No matter what. 

The argument that is sometimes made in education is that we should simply run schools like a business. Frankly, in some respects we do run our schools like business. But there are many, many stark differences that make it very clear that schools are not in fact businesses. What Jamie explains in his latest video is that in the business world quality control measures exist that enable the business, in this case his ice cream company, to reject raw material that doesn't meet the standards needed for the ice cream. If there are rotten, smashed, cracked, dry; whatever: those blueberries are simply discarded. Only the very best make it into the ice cream recipe which ultimately ends up on the shelf in the grocery store. 

In our public schools, our raw material is the students. We take them all: no matter what. Students who have learning difficulty or health concerns. Students who come from very wealthy families that want for nothing; and families that wonder where they will sleep the next night. Students who come from families that ensure their child has their homework completed daily, and those who are in a constant battle of the wills. We'll have children come through our doors at kindergarten with a vocabulary of 2,200; and others who won't speak a word of English. We take them all. No matter what.

In a business or manufacturing model, raw material that has met the prescribed quality control standards is taken and crafted into an end product that looks exactly like thousands, or even millions of others just like it. That product has been designed to perform the same way, ever single time. And frankly, it should. We want our cars to start when we turn the key, and we want our blueberry ice cream to taste the same way each time we scoop a bowl. But our students? 

For starters, considering each student who enters our doors enters at a different place on the learning continuum, how would it even be possible to get them all to the same place at roughly the same time? That is what the goal is though. By the end of 'X' grade, students should have mastered a specific set and series of skills and concepts. However, further exacerbating our efforts to reach this goal are all the other 'thing's that come along with our raw material (see paragraph 3). I'll tell you what though, what our teachers are able to produce daily in their classrooms with this raw material is pure magic. 

Perhaps what the question really should be is: Do we really want to produce blueberry ice cream that tastes the same way every time we scoop a bowl? I say not. What we really need is a diverse population of a well educated citizenry that can think on their own and solve problems. We need mechanics. Doctors. Teachers. Plumbers. This list goes on and on an on. The skill set for each varies and we should ensure that our students are ready for whatever awaits them when they finally leave our institutions.

We're going to happily use all the blueberries that are provided to us. And in the end, I think you'll find our ice cream is fantastic. We take them all. Every single child. No matter what.