School Budget Case Study

As the newly promoted director of student achievement for Washington, D.C Public Schools, I am fully committed to the expansion of current program offerings as well as the creation of additional programs. To achieve this, I will make use of the principles learned in my graduate budgeting course to assess the current financial situation, plan the department’s future direction, create and implement the new annual budget, and lastly, evaluate the success of the programs and the budget in preparation of repeating these steps.

On Tuesday we started a debate over if we are for recess and if we aren’t. I was on the pro side of the debate. With doing this debate we found out a lot of reasons why maybe recess isn’t such a good idea and why it is a good idea. For the pro side we found that recess provides an unstructured break that gives children discretionary time to engage in physical activity. We also learned that recess can be held anywhere. Recess plays an important role in a comprehensive school physical activity program and can provide a portion of the activity that a child needs every day to maintain health. We also told the con group that children learn through play. Free play allows children the opportunity to be themselves and use their imaginations. The con

Have you ever heard a child complain to someone about something happening at school or about them being too tired to do something because of at school or from not getting enough sleep? Kids now hardly get sleep because of after school activities ending too late, from staying up late to do homework, etc. I believe that if we cut back recess just a little that kids will have more time to get their homework, or classwork finished so they don’t have to worry about it later on.

If an hour and half of school were added every day, students would miss after school activities. Students will miss the fun extracurricular activities. and students won’t get the exercise they need.

This schedule change might impact after school sports and clubs, but not by much. It would only involve starting games and practices an hour later, a mere cost for that extra hour of sleep. The bus drivers would simply switch which kids they pick up first. The parents would be grateful to have their little kids out of the house earlier. The students would reap the benefits in their test scores. The small price for this change would benefit everyone.

The annual increase of the tuition fee for the last five years is associated with the increase in the operating budget of the State University. Therefore, there is a need for the State University to cut down some of their operating cost and implement audit activities that should be carried of often to ensure that the quality of education offered matches the resources used and the future needs of the country. The university should also set a clear cut-line to ensure that students meet at least the minimum requirements for the admission to various courses. Another important parameter that needs to be implemented is the audit program that will ensure that teacher and lecture teaching in the state university meets the requirement for carrying

Our political leaders struggle to understand the impact they have on the policies they put into place to improve public education. We see mandates that are unfunded and have a significant impact on a school district’s budget. Special education continues to be an area rich with policy and yet additional dollars are not included in the decisions made for implementation. Title one funding is an area that falls into a blurry area of policy for school districts. In our district, we have policies for fiscal responsibility in our spending procedures and yearly audits to be sure we are spending our money in a proper way.

One major reason why people support structured recess is because, “Recently, policy makers and funding organizations have called for more opportunities for daily activity as a means to address childhood obesity.” (Text 1, Lines 4-6). Structured recess lets students be able to play the same activity. This means that there will be less conflict because students often don’t agree with playing the same activity. For example, one group of students would want to play basketball while another group would want to play football. This doesn’t work out too well, and structured recess would fix that issue. “More children can actively participate in regular activity, irrespective of skill level.” (Text 1, Line 22). Structured recess can also be “a time for the child to make a personal choice between sedentary, physical, creative, or social options.” (Text 1, Lines 14-15). By allowing a structured recess, “Older elementary children may benefit from game instruction and encouragement for total class inclusion.” (Text 1, Lines

Many students upon entering middle school are surprised to find that recess if no longer part of their day. Recess has positive benefits for students. I think kids from 1 -12th grade should have recess. A few examples are: exercise is great for students, kids need time to socialize with their friends and socially connect, and recess reduces stress.

I strongly disagree with the Dickenson County School Board extending each school day by one and a half hours. I feel an extension will not benefit students and staff. The school days are long enough as it is. Students and staff may not have enough time to do other activities after school hours. Adding more and more hours to school will result in an abundance of stress on everyone involved. The school board needs to take into consideration all of the negative impact this extension will have on our schools.

Changing school start times will increase attendance and money brought in. Changing the times could increase attendance by 1%, which could bring in $40 million more.(Lewis) In Bonneville, Idaho the school started later in the day which resulted in absences dropping 15%. In the Article by Lisa Lewis, it also talks about how delaying school by 1 hour “produces the same benefit as shrinking class size by one-third or replacing a teacher in the 50th percentile of effectiveness with one in the 84th percentile.”(Lewis)

Most times, after lunch, kids are tired and just want to go home. This puts them in a slacking and mindless kind of mood, and makes them not want to work. If they were permitted to have a 30 of recess time immediately following their lunch, the majority of students would look forward to this intermission every day. It not only would allow time to walk, run, or play games that provide exercises, but it also allow social time for students to interact and this is highly important to middle school students. Emotionally, enjoyable social connections and exercise time with other students can rid stress among students as well. So, if there are some students with stress or anxiety it will help to alleviate such so they are better able to focus academically when returning to class. This exercise also produces chemicals in our body to help make us feel more positive and energetic. Recess would definitely improve the mood and atmosphere of our students, by making them happier and more pleasant

It's been argued that schools should not have recess because it gives more time to learn. On a website called Focus on the Family it's been said that without recess students have more time to learn, and come home with less homework than previous years.

According to Superintendent Ernest Singleton from the Premont Independent School District he realized that if he cancelled all the sports, the districts could be “saving $150,000 in one year” (11). In fact, Ripley announced that new “bleachers can cost half a million dollars” also to “maintain a green field that can cost more than $20,000 a year ” (11). This shows that school sports can be expensive and if they cancelled sports kids can have all their subjects. Clearly, getting rid of sports is important because students need to be able to have all their subjects and should be able to learn more about things in

I think students should not have an 8 hour school day. Most kids do not want to go to school longer than 8 hours. On debate.org a poll named “Should School Days be Shorter” show me that 89% of students said yes and 11% said no. My first reason is that “Students would get home much faster and they’ll have more time for homework and other activities after school.”Also, having a shorter school day would get students to have enough sleep and be energized the next day. My second reason is that the school district will save money and this is a quote from education.seattlepi.com. My third reason is that teachers would work fewer hours and therefore, would get less pay.” So I believe having a shorter school day could benefit the school district to save money and use it for field trips and sports. Students and the school district can be successful with a shorter school day.