Good Evening,

I need help writing a response to the following 3 student post? A paragraph for each post.

1st Post

Hi Dr. Bebee and cohort,

In the world of finance and budging, administrators face many challenges. The greatest challenge I see is having a budget cut and determining what needs to be cut. As a leader having to determine who or what is needed and what is not is tough. According to Sorenson and Goldsmith (2018) “Implementing an integrated vision, planning, and budget model does not happen overnight. It requires a significant amount of commitment and labor from all stakeholders” (p. 105). An educational leader spends time and resources conducting needs assessments to determine what is needed, what is a priority, what is non-priority, what is not needed and what is waste. Now add in a cut and have to get rid of something. This potentially can result in you being the leader telling an asset (a teacher) “I’m sorry you’re doing a great job but due to the budget need to let you go”. I personally was on the wrong end of that conversation and it was hard. My first teaching job was a charter school and middle of the year I was told due to major budget cuts in the past few months, we have to let you go. The director said it was one of the toughest decisions he has ever had to make. A few weeks later he said that he has fired many people in the past but never has he had to “fire” someone who was doing a great job.

Some budget cuts may be minor of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Major cuts have happened and result in thousands of dollars in cuts. Minor cuts may result in saving money on supplies such as paper or pencils. As stated major cuts may result in reducing staff (possibly making a counselor part time or even completely eliminating the position). Trying to provide more for your staff to help with improvement, now you have a budget cut and are tasked with saving money, giving your staff less only make the job and decisions harder.

A leader however can overcome these challenges. Minor cuts such as fewer supplies might be made up by asking a supply store in the community for a donation, having a supply collection drive or even the administrators buying supplies. Major cuts may require more thinking. A major cut might mean reducing support staff and letting a social worker go. Some communities have state or county agencies that may be able to work for the school part time. This will not fix that problem completely but may help part of the gap left behind. The government may have grant money available to overcome these challenges. Local communities and partnerships may have un-tapped resources they can donate or provide to assist the school building. You never know what other resources are available outside of the school if you do not look.

Reference

Sorenson, R and Goldsmith, L. (2018). The Principal’s Guide to School Budgeting Third Edition. Retrieved from https://www.gcumedia.com/digital-resources/sage/2018/the-principals-guide-to-school-budgeting_3e.php

2nd Post

I believe the greatest challenges facing administrators in the areas of finance and a school budget is not having enough money to fund projects or to hire new personnel and not organizing funds into the right areas. A school leader should complete a needs assessment to determine what the school needs the most. After a needs assessment, a strategic plan of action should be created by school leadership. The changes a school can make could be using time differently, changing or aligning schedules so that teachers have more time to collaborate, putting teachers in different leadership roles, and using data to determine the highest area of need (Miles & Galvez, 2017). Teachers need time to collaborate and plan. Some schools have added more plan time by creating other specials courses. Schools and teachers can also apply for grants to fund specific projects or resources. Staff can be put into different roles to help the needs of the school. Our school had a reading intervention teacher that was willing to switch to a roles as a classroom teacher in order to support a grade level that had too many students in each class. I believe that the key to overcoming financial challenges is using a plan that helps maximize the resources a school already has. My mentor has also told me that she can advocate for our school by discussing what the school needs with district level administration involved in finance distribution. These people are willing to provide more funds if they believe it will help the school and students make progress. It is up to the school leadership to take action to overcome financial challenges.

Miles, Karen, Galvez, Melissa. (2017). To Drive Change, Realign Your Resources. Educational Leadership (ASCD), Vol 74 (22-27). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/jun17/vol74/num09/To-Drive-Change,-Realign-Your-Resources.aspx

3rd post

Greetings,

As a future administrator, I assume the greatest challenge would be allocating the money to the best places on campus depending on the campus needs. Also trying to budget for it all, many campuses have limited resources and money coming in and not everything that is needed for the campus can be done. That is why choosing what gets through and what gets cut would be a difficult situation to be in. Many of the staff members look up to you as a leader and having to cut positions or tell an educator no due to budget I consider this to be difficult. That is why it is crucial to have a strong sense of financial responsibility and choose wisely. Also creating a plan where you look towards the future of the campus is important and crucial for thinking of upcoming potential challenges and having enough resources to cover future expenses. It is crucial for your plan to include “both long-range performance goals and shorter-cycle implementation target”, (Corbett, 2019). Financial literacy has been a challenge for me to grasp growing up but it is a skill that is important to master, that is why I plan to continue working on this as a campus administrator.

Reference

Corbett, Julie. “Using Needs Assessments for School and District Improvement.” Ccsso.org, 2019,ccsso.org/sites/default/files/2017-12/Using%20Needs%20Assessments%20For%20School%20and%20District%20Improvement.pdf.