Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Site based budgeting

On another post Anonymous wrote:


address anon 3:18 and all
About budget cuts- maybe new topic-
Since we have had "site based" management by principals, they have the ability to decide which subjects your children have- particularly in the elementary schools. I have never been seen as a defender of this board BUT- 9 schools had NO librarians. For some areas- Lincoln/ Lemington comes to mind-- that means that a student will not SEE a librarian until they start high school. Sure one day a week is wrong- but so is no access in 9 schools to library resources guided by a librarian. Other districts do not decide that some schools get this, and some dont. Another inequity-- book budgets- site based brought us principals deciding how much money goeds to new books in the library. Some got thousands a year; some as low as 25.00. Schools are different, and they have different numbers of students, staff etc. But, there should be a base throughout the district, both as far as staff and a basic book collection. Principals shouldnt be able to decide that wow, scores are low- no art or music for here. It is just equity that is necessary for a public school system.

2 comments:

Questioner said...

Is there any information on how much money each school receives under site based budgeting?

Anonymous said...

Site based budgets were severely cut back under Roosevelt, and what discretionary money was left over was the subject of oversight, as well. The entire idea of site based budgets went back as far as Louise Brennan, the last good superintendent we had, and was still in place under Dr.John.
But come one, the micromanager emritus Roosevelt was not going to let that happen under his watch.