Small districts, sharp axes: here are some proactive steps that can be taken at both the district and school site level to successfully cope with the continuing budget crisis

Leadership, May-June, 2004 by Clifford E. Tyler, Robert W. Kibby

What are some innovative ways to do more with less at the small district level? Although there are countless innovative ideas for budget balancing, strategies need to be approached from the perspective of increasing revenues and decreasing expenditures for both alternative scenarios.

On the revenue side, increasing both enrollment and average daily attendance should be the top priorities. With the increased enrollment competition from charter schools and private independent schools, small districts and schools need to market their strengths and benefits to well-known members of the community and parent leaders.

Additional services to draw parents back to public schools are needed, including extended/after school day care, Saturday schools and independent study (which requires careful record-keeping, since it is a state audit priority).

All schools should set ADA goals. Although many schools have a lower student attendance rate, ideally, elementary schools should have a 99 percent ADA, middle schools 98 percent, high schools 97 percent and continuation high schools 96 percent.

These percentages can be attained by educating parents on the importance of regular student attendance, aggressive staff follow-up of student absences, and maintaining an active School Attendance Review Board with a supportive district attorney to prosecute chronically absent students and their parents.

Another way to increase ADA is to develop a school calendar that provides for an early school starting date, well before Labor Day, so that the P-1 attendance report is reported before the winter break, and the P-2 attendance is reported before spring vacation. Later reporting of these two crucial reports from a later starting school date calendar serves to depress ADA.

In districts with large Hispanic student populations, many parents who are farm workers typically leave for Mexico for an extended winter holiday or work period during January. In many small districts, both enrollment and ADA tend to decrease for a variety of reasons, including early parent vacations and high school student dropout increases, which happen after spring break.

Other innovative strategies to increase revenues include in-house student suspension instead of sending students home, leasing/selling surplus property and/or school sites, hiring a consultant to pursue state-mandated cost reimbursements from the state, and implementing state-deferred maintenance matching funds (if state funds are still available).

Although charter schools can depress enrollment for regular schools, small districts can start their own charter schools to compete with non-district-sponsored charter schools or private schools. Student inter-district attendance requests should be monitored to comply with board policies, and if attendance exit requests are excessive, districts should investigate reasons for the student exodus and design strategies to reverse the trends.

Decreasing expenditures

When it comes to decreasing expenditures, the list of innovative strategies is much longer, but often more controversial. Possibilities include central office reorganization, classified staff restructuring and consolidation of custodial support. At a small central office, administrators can be assigned dual roles, such as the assistant superintendent-instruction also serves as the director of special education; a principal not only being in charge of a school site, but also serving as district safety coordinator or consolidated projects director. In some cases, administrators' consolidated projects time could be charged to consolidated budget(s).