The Impact of Resource Management on Student Performance

Abstract
This paper provides an overview of the need for the Butler School to reduce its annual budget by $1,000,000 in order to meet the mandate of the community that the school should “live within its means.” The recommended reductions are based on eliminating extraneous programs, staff positions, administrative services, and supply funds. Areas that are not reduced include programs that support the humanities, athletics, science and technology, as these areas are deemed too important to the formation and development of students’ characters and skills, which are needed to ensure success in their ensuing years. Letters to a state legislator and to the community are attached in the Appendix.
Keywords: school funding, budget reduction, administration reduction, school budgeting
Introduction
As Butler Elementary School has been tasked with eliminating $1,000,000 from its annual budget, there are a number of cuts that the school will be required to make in order to meet the desire of the community that the school “live within its means.” In some ways, this means that the school will have to do away with certain extraneous programs and positions that, while helpful in the overall scheme of things, do not negatively impact the school’s ability to function by their removal. This paper will present the line item cuts recommended to allow Butler to meet its target reductions and will provide an explanation as to why these cuts are recommended as opposed to other programs and positions.
Budget Overview and Recommended Reductions
There are a number of cuts that could be made to allow the school to meet its target; however, the elementary school is only capable of providing so many reductions and these would not be enough to meet the $1,000,000 target. Therefore, it is also necessary to make reductions from the middle school budget as well. For that reason, a total K-8 recommendation for reductions is here provided in the following chart.
Item
Savings
Cost of Replacement
Net Savings
Total
Line item reductions from Option One
Staff Positions
Eliminate middle-school assistant principal position; add full-time office staff
135,563
29,148
106,415
Supplies
District:
Reduce annual supply allocation from $575 to $400 per teacher
15,225
15,225
Reduce hard copies of formal comms--replace w/ e-copies
15,824
500
15,324
Reduce administrative supplies annual allocation by 50
6,650
6,650
Reduce psychologist supplies annual allocation from $2,075 to $1,275
1,275
1,275
Elementary School:
Parent fees: have parents pay for field trips, bus, and acitivty
17,400
17,400
Grades 5-8 band program: parents pay for band competitions, fees
6,315
6,315
Increase price of yearbook to include stipend, printing, and binding
15,087
15,087
Have parents pay for student magazines--add to textbook fee
20,200
20,200
Student competitions: eliminate Gifted Program competitions
18,500
18,500
222,391
Sum
Line item reductions from Option Two
Staff Positions
Elementary:
Eliminate learning-center assistant (rely on volunteers, closing during breaks)
25,450
25,450
Replace science lab teacher w/ full-time assistant
63,799
25,000
38,799
Elementary:
Reduce supplies/discretionary spending from $8,000 to $4,000
4,000
4,000
Middle School:
Reduce supplies/discretionary spending from $11,000 to $5,500
5,500
5,500
Programs
Elementary:
Eliminate extra/cocurricular activities, including substance abuse program
23,492
23,492
Middle School:
Eliminate extra/cocurricular activities, including substance abuse program (not including sports)
85,670
85,670
Technology
Eliminate next phase of Technology Plan, rely on PTC and Education Foundation
158,225
158,225
563,527
Sum of One, Two
Line item reductions from Option Three
Improvement of Instruction
Eliminate all school-improvement activities (ex: committees)
103,395
103,395
Eliminate all substitute teachers needed for committee work
26,500
26,500
Reduce summer work to items necessary to reopen school year
29,685
29,685
Reduce professional development for teachers, administration and board
33,888
33,888
Staff Positions
Elementary:
Eliminate five grade 1 assistants
42,264
42,264
Eliminate two kindergarten assistants
48,640
48,640
Eliminate four special-education assistants
100,917
100,917
District:
Reduce speech and language pathologist FTE from 2.6 to 2.0
45,200
45,200
Sum total of line item reductions:
$994,016
Sum Total
Impact on Organization
The impact on the organization as a result of these reductions is designed to be minimal. Cuts have been recommended at the district level, the elementary school level and the middle school level. Cuts have included administrative reductions, supply fund allocation reductions, program reductions, technology reductions and staff reductions. Without compromising the integrity of the school’s educational quality, these cuts are meant to enable the school to live within its means while still providing top-notch service and educational opportunities. Students and faculty may notice minor inconveniences in terms of hours of when the science lab is open or the amount of assistance available in classrooms—but with time adjustments will be made to enable these changes to be accepted with positivity.
Student Performance
The financial recommendations made herein will not adversely affect the instructional program provided to students. Assistants have been eliminated from the grade 1 level and the kindergarten level as well as the special education classroom—but the main teachers remain, and with the main teachers implementing the Montessori method to help students learn on their own and advance on their own at these levels, volunteers (parents of students) will be asked to help as is consistent with this method (Mangal, 2007). In short, student performance is not expected to be negatively impacted by these reductions. In fact, those areas in the middle school that are some of the most popular and most formative—including sports, band, art, music, family consumer science, and applied technology—have not been touched at all. The reason is that our organization believes strongly in the formative quality of these areas, as Turnnidge, Côté and Hancock (2014) and Hatfield, Montana and Deffenbaugh (2006) have shown.
Management of the Organization
The administration and supervision of students will only be marginally affected. The administration will be affected in terms of committee organization dedication to improving areas of instruction. However, with instruction already at a high level of quality at the school, these committees have a somewhat superfluous quality that will not be greatly missed at this point. In the future, they may need to be revived—but for now the school administration can do without them. As for supervision of students, only the grade 1 level and kindergarten level along with the special education classroom will suffer—but with the assistance of volunteer parents to fill the gap, this reduction can be more than made up for.
Vision
These financial recommendations relate to the organizational vision of Butler in that they maintain the school’s dedication to the formative type of education rooted in community values that will help strengthen the character of students so that they can succeed in the years ahead. The humanities, athletics, band, science and technology will remain largely untouched—and that means Butler will be there to help guide students in some of the most formative ways possible. For other areas, where assistant positions are being cut, parents or other members of the community can collaborate with the school through a volunteer service to come in and help the main teachers in the younger grades, in the science lab, and in the special education classroom to maintain order, provide additional supervision, and assist in the educative process. Indeed, this is a perfect opportunity for the community and school to come together to promote a safe and efficient facility. More on this topic can be found in the “Letter to the Community” located in Appendix B.
Student Diversity
My combined impartiality and sensitivity to student diversity in preparing the budget, including attention given to special education and NCLB disaggregated groups, was to some degree subordinated by the needs of the school to live within its means. However, acknowledging that student diversity is important, I have left language and speech programs intact, because I know how critical it is for at-risk students and English as Second Language learners to have full access to all the support they require in order to excel based on what researchers like Dashwood and Son (2017) have been able to show. For the special education classroom, I am hoping that the good will of the community will be enough that the gaps in assistance can be filled by volunteers from the community.
Reflection
Overall, the recommended reductions to the school’s budget focus on trimming the fat, so to speak—cutting supply fund allocations where possible, reducing administrative staff where efficacious, and relying on the involvement of parents and community members to fill the gaps—whether it is in paying for field trips or volunteering to be of assistance in the science lab or in the special education classroom, kindergarten classroom or grade 1 classroom. What the recommendations have not done is this: they have not recommended that the humanities, science and technology aspects of education, or the important extracurricular activities, such as athletics or band, be sacrificed. These areas are important and critical to academic and character development—and so they will remain so long as the values they inculcate are promoted by the community and fostered by this school.
Conclusion
These recommended reductions will help Butler to reach its target reduction of $1,000,000 by eliminating what are essentially extraneous programs, positions, funding and staffing areas so that the school can live within its means as per the mandate of the community. For more information on what the school would like in return from the community, please see the “Letter to the Community” in Appendix B. For more information on what the school would like in terms of support from the state to possibly make up for some of the recommended reductions in the coming years, please see “Letter to the State Legislator” in Appendix A.

References
Dashwood, A., & Son, J. B. (2017). Academic language support for at-risk students:
REACHing further. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 11(1), A58-A70.
Hatfield, C., Montana, V., & Deffenbaugh, C. (2006). Artist/art educator: Making sense
of identity issues. Art Education, 59(3), 42-47.
Mangal, S. K. (2007). Educating Exceptional Children: An Introduction in Special
Education. Delhi: PHI Learning.
Stanford. (2018). Landmark U.S. cases. Retrieved from
https://edeq.stanford.edu/sections/landmark-us-cases-related-equality-opportunity-education
Turnnidge, J., Côté, J., & Hancock, D. J. (2014). Positive youth development from sport
to life: Explicit or implicit transfer?. Quest, 66(2), 203-217.
Appendix A—Letter to State Legislator
Dear Senator,
I am writing to request your support for Butler Elementary School and our school district. Recently, our district has been asked by the community to reduce its budget by $1,000,000. As you can imagine, this has placed serious strain on our school and our school district’s ability to provide the type of services and education that we aim to offer our students. I know that equitability in education is highly important to you and your fellow senators. It is highly important to me to and to my school and community, as we believe in equitable funding for all students regardless of their socioeconomic background.
I would like to invite you to support the bill currently working its way through the state legislature that would require the state government to allocate and distribute funds based on need in accordance with the recommendations of several state Supreme Courts over the years, including the California State Supreme Court, the Minnesota State Supreme Court and the New Jersey State Supreme Court—most notably in the Abbott v. Burke trials (1985-2011) (Stanford, 2018).
Please help bring our state up to date in terms of what the rest of the nation has already mostly deduced—that equal opportunity for education is right that all students should have no matter where they live. Our district may not be the wealthiest when it comes to finances—but it is rich beyond all earthly measures when it comes to community. Our community is active, strong and engaged with our school and the school district. We have volunteers who are willing to help fill many gaps in our services and support system within Butler School.
However, with your help and the help of your fellow legislators, we can do more to close the achievement and the teacher gap. We can begin to help bring our school up to date and begin to improve the types of technology we have to offer to our students. We can begin to prepare these young minds for the challenges and demands that are unique to this our 21st century.
I write this letter to you today in hopes that you will recognize the need to empower our young minds by supporting the bill to end education disparity and allow our state government to distribute funds to schools as needed.
Thank you,
X

Appendix B—Letter to Community
Dear Community,
This letter is to explain why the decisions to reduce funding for certain programs and services were made. As you know, our mandate from the community is to live within our means. While we have numerous ideas of how we can best serve our students, some of those ideas are simply unsustainable given the budget requirements. For that reason, our reductions have been made in order to trim away any excess fat—service areas and programs that, while important, are only marginally so when it comes to the mission of the school.
However, we would still like your input. If you have concerns about the reductions that we have made, please let us know how you feel and why you believe our reductions are either good or bad. Your voice is important to us, and we promise to take your concerns into consideration going forward.
At the same time, we would like to take this opportunity to collaborate with you in a most meaningful way—by inviting members of our community, whether parents of pupils or no, to volunteer in our classrooms and science lab to help fill the gap left by our reductions. We would like to partner with other local schools, businesses, community organizations including youth groups and local churches as well as social agencies to help ensure that the programs important to you and your kids continue to be offered. Thanks to volunteers, we can make it happen. Businesses can help with donations and sponsorships and demonstrate their good will in this way. Parents and tutors can help by giving their time to assist teachers in the lower level grades, the special education classroom, and in the science lab. Social agencies can assist by helping to organize after-school programs for our elementary students so that they are not missing out on the opportunities that students in wealthier districts are afforded.
With your help, we can make this happen. We can make it so that these reductions are barely felt at all. We want to continue to serve our community and our kids in the best ways possible—and now we would like your help more than ever to accomplish this mission.
Yours,
X