Clinical Field Experience B
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Grand Canyon University *
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505
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Health Science
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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Uploaded by hudnalldanielle
Clinical Field Experience B: Schoolwide Budgetary Needs
Danielle Hudnall College of Education, Grand Canyon University EAD-510: Education Finance Professor Daphne Lowe January 24, 2024
Summary: Background, Expenditures, and Revenue-
The elementary school that I work at has 53% of students are of minority race
with 100% qualifying for free/ reduced lunch. Most of our students come from
home situations that are not ideal and involve parents who are not supportive.
The community surrounding the school is tough and there are issues with drugs
and violence often. Recently, we have had to deal with situations involving
members of the community coming to campus during the school day and stealing
students’ bikes to then turn around and sell them. A lot of our students have
learning gaps due many factors including home life and come to school because it
is their safe place and escape from the unstable setting that is home. Most of the
spending in our school goes to increasing students’ academics as well as different
things that support the emotional side of students lives. At this time the only
revenue that our school receives other than state funding, would be from
donations from community partners and funds that are raised on different school
sponsored event nights at local businesses. We currently have monthly Texas
Roadhouse nights, as well as Jimmy Johns nights to try in bring in some extra
revenue for the school.
Collaborate: Current Budget- In meeting with my current principal at our school I was able to dig deeper into
our school budget for this year. We are shown the budget in a staff meeting at the
beginning of the school year and where funds go is explained to the whole staff so
that we all know where the money is going. However, in sitting with Mrs. G, I was
able to understand better what the process is of making the school budget. Our
school budget is put together at the end of the school year to get ready for the
upcoming year and is completed by the start of the current school year. When
coming up with the budget for the school year the stakeholders that are involved
include the school leaders, our ELA and math coaches, the SAC committee, and
teachers team leads. After the team has come up with a budget it is then shared
with the staff at the start of the school year and staff members are able to weigh
in on their thoughts or concerns with any budgetary needs. Then once the school
has seen the budget it is submitted to the district for approval, if there are items
that need to be modified the team that made the budget to start reconvenes and
makes adjustments that are needed. If modifications are made staff is made
aware, it is not something that is done without everyone knowing. Our district like
to use technology to the best that it can be. Students are expected to be on some
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form of tech everyday. Because of this there is a need to have portions of our
school budget set towards making sure that technology is up to date and useable
by staff and students. Collaborate: Analysis of Current Budget, Previous Budget, and SIP-
Our current school budget and the budget from the previous school year are very
similar, however there are some areas that have changed. One of the big changes
in our budget is that last year we were a school who used the Conscious Discipline
program school wide. This was a program that most schools in the district had
used for the past 3 years. This year, because of different legislative things, this
program was not allowed to be used in our school. There were a lot of funds
allocated for this program because it involved training for all staff multiple times
throughout the year as well as literature and different tools that were needed to
make the program successful. Another change to our budget is that funds were
used to purchase an additional guidance counselor and a full-time school social
worker. The district gives our school an allotment to have 2 guidance counselors
but at our school we have students that have very high needs, and the amount of
student needs was greater than could be handled by the two counselors, so they
used funds to add in another position. In years prior we only had two counselors
and with the number of students that we serve who have trauma and need to
have someone other than a teacher who can be their safe place was too much.
Under that same thinking we had a school social worker, but she was not full time
and we were going to have to split them between multiple schools. Since we had
funds available the team decided to make sure that we had someone 5 days a
week to give our students the support they need. In addition to adding staff
positions with the budget, most of the funds were spent in ways to make sure
that students can achieve their highest level of academic success through
classroom instruction and intervention. These items support our school SIP goals
because we have multiple goals about students making learning gains and with
providing different levels of intervention to students to close learning gaps, they
will be able to achieve that goal of making learning gains. Summary: Key Findings-
After administering the needs assessment to multiple teachers at my school I
noticed that the majority of teachers areas of concerns for their students had to
deal with different aspects of reading. In the younger grades it involved letter
recognition/ sounds and blending CVC words, whereas in the higher grades it was
writing and vocabulary. One of the schools SIP goals as well as a big expense for
our school is different resources to support our students in reading. So while we
are working to close those gaps there are still major areas of concern through
different grade levels and with different teachers. Some of the things that staff
felt is working well would be our iReady reading and math curriculum, Heggerty
daily reding practice, and students are starting to use different strategies for
reading. iReady and Heggerty are both programs that our school purchases to
help students in reading, so it is good to see that teachers feel they are helpful to
help close learning gaps. There were multiple submissions that state teachers
need more support so that they can be successful. One of the teachers is a special
education teacher who does not have enough trained support staff to be able to
help her students as much as they need. Another issue that was pointed out is
that, a classroom where students have the highest level of need, students need to
be one to one with technology and they only have 10 ipads for 17 students. IN
looking at the teachers responses I was able to see that there are things in the
budget that are successful and teachers are recognizing that, but there are still
some areas that we could grow with to still improve how we spend school funds
each year. Summary-
In giving the needs assessment I was able to think of a couple things that we could
change to help teachers feel more supported and help students as well. First,
instructional assistants who are helping in special education classrooms could be
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sent to trainings to help them be more successful in meeting the needs of
students that they are assisting which would take at least a little bit of a bigger
help to those classroom teachers because the supports that they have would be
able to support the students that need it. Another suggestion that I could make to
school leaders would be to reevaluate the reading curriculum that we are using.
Multiple staff, from multiple grade levels stated that they do not feel that the
curriculum we are using is not working for our students. Leaders could look for
different reading resources that we could use that would accommodate our
learners better than the current one we are using so our students would be more
successful. Reflection: Continuous and Sustainable School Improvements-
Every year the school sends out some sort of survey to see what staff feels is
going well and what is needed to help serve students better. I feel as though
these needs assessments are very important because school leaders are not in
the classroom every day to see what is going on and how different practices are
being implemented. There could be something that the school has budgeted a
large amount of money towards to help with students’ success and leaders may
not know that the program does not work because they are not the ones using it
with students. Giving these needs assessments gives teachers a way to
communicate with leaders so that they know what things are working and need
to stay as they are, but also what things just do not work, and we need to find
other ways to try and reach goals. In addition, most needs surveys are
anonymous so teachers who are worried about voicing their opinions due to back
lash have a safe place to do so without their name being tied to their thoughts. Reflection: Implications for Future Practice-
In the future, I will use needs assessment to gage areas of need based on facts
and to include staff, teachers, and stakeholders in the budget-making process. I
will make needs assessments that can be administered multiple times as year to
make sure that our budget keeps up with the needs of students, staff, and the
community. I want to be open with stakeholders about how resources are used,
which goes with PSEL Standard 4: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment and
Standard 5: A Caring and Supportive Community for Students. I want to help the
school that I am working at continue to grow and be more successful by always
figuring out what it needed and making decisions based on data that has been
collected on those needs.
Reference
National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2015). Professional
Standards for Educational Leaders 2015. Reston, VA: Author. Sorenson, R. D., & Goldsmith, L. M. (n.d.).The Principal's Guide to School
Budgeting.
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