Reply to Questions about DCPS staffing model

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Questions about DCPS staffing model"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The DCPS budgeting is a lot of smoke and mirrors.

A half-dozen years ago I was on the LSAT at my local DCPS elementary. Here's how the budgeting would work:  We would get a "staffing model" and a per-pupil allocation. The staffing model always included a few positions the principal didn't really want or need. The per-pupil changed every year, sometimes in the middle of the year, there was no rhyme or reason to it. But no matter how you sliced it there wasn't going to be enough money for enough classroom teachers to keep average class size below the high twenties.  LSAT members would receive "training materials" from DCPS telling us how small classes were over-rated, the latest "research" suggests they may even be bad for learning.

The principal would figure out how many classrooms he needed to get the average size into the low twenties. It would usually be 2-3 more teachers than the model allowed. He would submit a budget that met the per-pupil, filled all of the required position, but had those extra 2-3 teachers. To do it he would have zero spending on non-personnel. He'd put in a note saying the PTA had agreed to cover all non-personnel expenses for the year.

The principal would then hire the people he wanted, but make no effort to hire people for the positions he didn't think were necessary. By mid-year he'd be running a nice budget surplus because of all the unfilled positions, so he'd reprogram the surplus for non-personnel expenses. At the end of the year he'd use his accumulated surplus to stock up on as many supplies and materials as he could for the next year, because he was going to submit another budget with zero for non-personnel. The PTA never ended up having to cover anything (although it did help with other things.)
[/quote]

This is very interesting.  Thanks for the background.

Now the part about "small classes are bad" is just frightening....[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics