Lee schools begin to budget for next year
The School District of Lee County resource allocation process will soon begin as schools start to plan their budgets for the following school year.
Budget Director Kelly Letcher gave the school board an update regarding district resource allocation, which will start taking place on March 31.
She told the board on March 23 that they are planning on having district resource allocations to the schools, so they can start planning budgets for next year in regards to staffing.
District resource allocation is based on projections of what the school population will be at each school, something looked at multiple times.
Letcher said the allocation process takes the student population to make sure there is enough to cover them.
For instance, for elementary tier one and two schools, there is one teacher per each 20 children in kindergarten and one teacher per 21 kids for first grade. Letcher said they know the numbers are above class size, but they also know in some cases the class size will not fill up.
“Remember our class sizes are an average by school,” Letcher said.
For tier three schools, the allocation is different.
She said they provide a lower allocation to make sure students have lower student-to-teacher ratios to ensure there are additional resources to help students. Tier three schools are determined by such measures as proficiency and learning gains.
A special allocation is provided for the English Language Learner population, as those students struggle quite a bit, she said.
There is also additional support for students in inclusion classrooms.
Letcher reminded the board that even though their DAR allocation has not changed from last year, a school could be losing or gaining based on student population.
“The allocation is staying the same, it is population that is changing,” she said.
Letcher said although there are some set guidelines to make sure certain bases are covered, they want to provide as much flexibility as they can to the principal to run the school as they see fit. She said they want to make sure they have a certain number of teachers per student, as well as counselors to make sure all needs of the students are met.
If a principal deviates from that they have to submit a waiver and justify it. Letcher said every Monday a committee looks at the waiver to see if it can be approved or denied.
“We try the best we can to make sure the allocations are there and to make sure they have the allocations they need,” Letcher said.
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