Directions:
There are different funding formulas for federal, state, and local education funds. As an educational leader, you will be charged with the task of budget maintenance and requests for many different aspects of your school.
Imagine you are at an administration’s meeting with the District Strategic Planning Team that is responsible for the allocation of personnel and funds to each school in the district. Your school is in a transitional neighborhood in your school district. Your school district is a suburban district usually thought to be home to the upper-middle class. In your school’s geographical location, however, many previously owner-occupied homes are now rentals and two large apartment complexes have become Section 8 and Housing Authority properties. Both Section 8 and Housing Authority housing programs are governmentally funded programs. Your free and reduced lunch has changed from 15% to 70% of your school population in the past year alone. The number of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch is indicative of the change in the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood.
In this meeting with the District Strategic Planning Team, your funding requests are up against other needed requests from other schools in the district. You are competing with other schools for a limited amount of funds. As funds seem to be in short supply and everyone believes they have a strong and valid need, you will want to research and support each point in your request for funds.
In the state where you live, research local, state, and federal funding formulas and explain how your school receives funds each year and create a 10- to 15-slide PowerPoint presentation, that includes the following:
- Introduction slide.
- Describe your school to the district officials. Make sure you include the history as well as the characteristics of the local community, the student population, and the staff.
- List and explain your budget requests based on the research gained from the funding formulas.
- Use information from your reading — both textbook resources and outside research —to justify and support your request for equitable and adequate funding (remember to use APA citation for your references).
- Explain how your budget is affected by local, state, and federal guidelines.
- Reference slide.
