School Finance - Final Reflection

      School finance was considered a weakness of mine from the beginning of the Superintendent certification program. Competency 8 now has more strengths and competent than before. I am competent in the budget development of the procedures and timelines that should be followed to accomplish this each year. The reason I think my greatest strength is in regards to personnel. I believe in looking for qualities a person has to benefit the organization and I do well with set policies.  The policies, laws, and procedures must be followed exactly each and every time – no exceptions with selecting, evaluating, disciplining, reassigning, and dismissal of personnel. I will continue to seek improvement in understanding more depth of school finance. I understand the expenditures and budget what funds you have, but I still having difficulty of where and how much all the funds are coming from. I am going to do additional research on state and federal funding, plus schedule another appointment with our business person at my district to clarify a few remaining questions I have.

     The lectures gave me a direction to accomplish the assignments and the main focus for that week. The TEA link for finance was extremely helpful resources and I utilized the TEA Budgeting Guidelines frequently. I found the Summary of School Finance for the districts to be quite interested and sparked my interest in analysis surrounding districts. The equity and adequacy can easily be seen in your own backyard.

     Each week brought something new to my attention regarding school finance. The words equality, equity and adequacy now carry the face of school children in my mind. The children in Texas are not receiving the same learning experiences and each district is unique with their own challenges. The calendar of events for developing a budget is something I will use in the future. The activities of comparing districts were beneficial for looking at WADA, revenues and expenditures of a district. Also, the introduction and discussion of the Financial Integrity Rating System was knowledgeable for me.  The group collaboration became a rewarding experience as we worked on each week’s assignment. The reassurance of having someone to communicate with on the assignments made this course manageable.

    This course will assist me in my current position with the understanding more of the district budget planning that I am part of. I will be able to follow and have a more meaningful understanding of the current issues with school funding. The course has already brought me having conversations within my district on funding and budgeting. The road to providing equity and adequacy education is going to continue to be a bumpy and difficult road with no end in sight.