In search of funding flexibility and unfunded mandates

Several Florida lawmakers have made it clear that they're willing to consider giving school districts more leeway in how to spend their money, seeing as the money supply is quickly shrinking.

Pasco superintendent Heather Fiorentino, a former state lawmaker herself, isn't waiting for someone else to pave the way for Tallahassee's intentions. Instead, she and her staff have crafted a list that they're now circulating among legislators in hopes of seeing at least some of the ideas take hold, perhaps during next month's special session.

What's on her list?

• Allowing districts to use money ordinarily set aside for capital projects to fund general operations.
• Extending the delay of full-implementation of the class-size amendment.
• Postponing the mandatory establishment of district-level K-8 virtual education programs.
• Changing the state's academic standards review process, currently every four years, so each subject aligns with its six-year textbook adoption cycle.

For more, see Fiorentino's full list of ideas for making spending more flexible and lessening the restrictions of unfunded mandates. And let us know what you think, of course.

Comments

[publicschoolteacher]

4:21
Not to undermine what you do on a daily basis, because I have worked with MANY hardworking ESE co-teachers, but you are supposed to help deliver instruction as well (at least in a secondary classroom). That's why many students have assumed I have an assistant instead of a second teacher in the classroom. The basic ed teacher can pull small groups and facilitate as well.

But they should NOT be sticking us with 44 kids because the class size amendment can be twisted to mean 22 students per TEACHER rather than 22 per classroom. Parents are the one that need to speak up on this. They are the only ones to whom people at the district listen.

[terminator]

"Flexibility" is merely codespeak for bumbling bureaucrats at the school district administration building to keep their $100K "do-nothing jobs" while pissing more education funding down the drain on useless bureaucracy.(Seems like Rhonda is an apologist for this kind of behavior).
As pointed out by Lucy Morgan, many are double dippers wasting scarce taxpayer dollars by occupying positions that would be better served by more youthful middle managers at a much lower pay scale.
Do we really need guys like Eduardo Padron and Bob Richburg because their services are just too valuable to let them go? The answer is no and there are many who could more than capably replace them for a whole let less.
We need to send all the dead wood packing. We'll be working on several bills this session that would do just that.

[invest in our future]

I think that the lawmakers need to follow the constitution and fund class size amendment sufficiently. If not, counties, parents and teachers need to sue. They must follow our laws. The people have voted. Why do lawmakers and republicans think they can get around the law?

So many good points. I will second the comment that there are many bad teachers who need to be fired but in reality, it won't happen because they have been in the system for too many years. Very sad!
Also, working in co-teach classrooms myself, I totally disagree with adding more students to the class just because there are 2 teachers. My job is to be there for my students, the ones who need my help understanding what is happening in class. All too often, many basic education teachers think we are there to do their job too. I find it very difficult to write 25 IEPs, differentiate instruction daily for my students in every class when I am not given lesson plans, and record all of my accommodations daily incase I am investigated. Oh, did I mention this is all to be completed with my 2 planning periods a week because the other days we are forced to attend meetings. Needless to say, no X-Mas break for some of us.
Anyway, I mention this because it makes many of us teachers very angry when we are told we don't work hard enough for our pay but then some people make twice as much and do half as less.

Rhonda,

That 85% on salaries are not teacher salaries. What percent of that 85% is spent on clipboard carrying admins who get in the way of education rather than "facilitating" better education?

I don't know about your county, but in my county's school district there are probably hundreds who actually need to be fired. The students' lives will be enhanced by their firings.

When the district's secretarial pool out earns the teaching staff, there is a serious problem of mismanagement. When there are more admins to teachers than there are teachers to students, serious problems exist.

Everybody wants to put more kids in a teacher's room, but nobody talks about putting more employees under one supervisor.

The trick is getting the higher admins to thin out the right crops. Sadly, the biggie big admins count on the not so biggie big admins to fight their battles and hide their ineptness. So teachers and classroom assistants will be given up in order to buy the cooperation of middle management types.

The adults in the system just can't see they're teaching big picture lessons with their self absorption.

ps Rhonda, are you an admin type?

[worriedparent]

Can't stretch the classroom from 30 to accommodate 44 plus furniture and backpacks?

Then call the Fire Marshall and see how fast those 44 become less.

The only entity that can literally shut a school down is the local fire marshall. Safety has to trump budget woes.

[publicschoolteacher]

The text book suggestion makes great sense! We get rid of thousands of perfectly good, perfectly relevant text books of all subjects every year only to purchase new ones that are almost identical!

However, there needs to be limits on the class size postponement. I have already had my assistant principal ask me about having 44 students in my co-teach classes (22 PER TEACHER!). I don't have room for 30 desks, let alone 44! Let's not lose sight of what is truly best for students in the attempt to save every job.

[Peter]

The schools have too many mandates as its is. It is almost as why do we elect the Sup and the Board, when the State tells them exactly how to do everything?

[Pasco employee]

Kudos to Heather for working proactively to keep Pasco school employees working. She is remaining true to her word. Without this temporary flexibility, hundreds of jobs will be soon lost.

[Rhonda]

901- you have no clue. Districts have already spent 2/3rds of their budgets because it is mid-year. Flexibility is the only way to avoid massive amounts of lay-offs (which would hurt the economy) because over 85% of their budget is salaries. THey are looking to use capitol (or construction money) for operating expenses. You shouldn't make assumptions when you know not of what you speak.

Kudos to the super for trying to be proactive, but I agree with the above poster.

FL school districts need MORE mandated spending parameters. Not nearly enough of the money makes it to the classrooms!

In reading some of the funding flexibility ideas, you can ask yourself how they will manifest themselves in the classrooms. Using capital project funds might leave schools in even more disrepair (mold infestations maybe), textbooks older than five years may become a problem when books are lost and damaged (will your child have one?), putting off class size reduction may leave your child in a math class (with or without a textbook) competing with 40 other kids for the teacher's attention(does your kid need help in math?)

No more flexibility. School districts already abuse the budgeting process. They seem to think it's a game of whether or not they really have to follow state and federal rules.

Where is the idea of ending the erroneous dispensing of money via the A+ plan since school grades do not reflect instructional effectiveness??

districts already pour money down the drain -- now they want permission to be more flexible in doing so? scary....