Budget and Advocacy

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Budget and Advocacy

• upportuccess

Vermont School Library Association October 23,
2008 Montpelier, VT
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• Susan D. Ballard, Director
• Library Media and Technology
• Londonderry NH School District
  

sballard_at_londonderry.org
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Overview

• Context
• Guiding Principles, Reasons, Audiences,
  Standards, Assessments
• Process
• Data Sources
• Instructional
• Demographic
• Perceptions
• Services/Collection Information
• Other
• Advocacy, Planning, and Strategies
• Barriers
• Questions and Comments

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Guiding Principles

• Proactive vs. Reactive
• Positive vs. Negative
• Future vs. Past
• Two-way vs. One-way
• Open vs. Closed
• Strongly themed vs. scattered messages

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Why should you do this?

• School Library Media Specialists can
• Help transform learning and community
• Provide access to resources that help to level
  the playing field and close the literacy and
  digital divide
• Impact student achievement

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Why should you do this?

• Research and evidence (Curry Lance,
  Kuhlthau/Todd, Simmons Study)
• Standards
• Accreditation
• Best Practice
• Local Data
• College expectations

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Why should you do this?

• Accountability
• This is a business
• Our Target Audiences of constituents/clients/cus
  tomers expect us to produce results

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Who are our Audiences?

• Students
• Teachers
• Principals
• Support Staff and Volunteers
• Superintendent and
• District Level Personnel
• School Board, Parents,
• and Community

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What Do They Want To Know?

• Community
• Safety Indicators
• Teacher Qualifications
• Performance indicators -Test Scores, Promotion
  Rates w/o context setting
• Comparison Data (to a fixed standard) local,
  state, national and international
• How Time is Spent
• Educators
• Per Pupil Spending
• Resource Distribution
• Demographics
• Performance indicators- Test Scores, Promotion
  Rates w context setting

• Education Week Quality Counts 99
  Companion Report "Reporting Results What the
  Public Wants to Know"

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Building Blocks of Assessment and Planning

• National, state, and local standards and goals
• Evaluation and Assessment Tools
• Data Sources
• Development of a long
• range, strategic plan

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National, state, local standards and expectations

• Standard for the 21st Century Learner AASL
• ISTE NETS-S
• State Leaning Results, Frameworks, Common Core
• Accreditation Programs
• Local Benchmarks and Standards

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Assessment

• Instructional Assessment systematically
  observing and describing what students are
  learning Rubrics
• Program assessment systematically describing how
  well your program performs against an established
  set of criteria or indicators NYS

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A Data-Driven Budget Process

• Identify and inventory initiatives, and how the
  school library media program is related
• Identify problems - describe/discuss hypotheses
  and hunches
• Identify questions, data available and data
  needed
• Design a plan for data needed
• Collect and Analyze the data
• Analyze politics/cultural issues related to
  resolution
• Develop improvement plan predicated on the data
  and analysis
• Communicate using the data

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Instructional Data Sources

• Curriculum Collaboration rubric
• Who uses our services and for what
  purpose? HS MS EL
• Instructional Assessment
• Local and Standardized timeline
• Action research, reflection and renewal

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Demographic Data

• Community
• History
• Geographic Location
• Population ( Race/ethnic composition religious
  affiliations Size of average household and
  percentage of school age population employment
  status and education background)
• Housing composition and trends
• Crime Rate
• Economic Base

• Student
• Enrollment
• Attendance
• Drop-out rates
• Graduation rate
• Parent income, education
• and employment
• Free and reduced lunch rates
• Discipline indicators
• Percentage at-risk

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Demographic Data Sources

• School
• History
• Funding mechanism
• Physical Plant
• Number of Teachers, Administrators, Support Staff
• Educational Background and Experience
• Student-Teacher Ratios
• Library and Technology Statistics
• Special Programs

• School District
• History
• Governance
• Organizational Structure
• Funding mechanism
• Special Programs and Services provided
• Accent on Achievement

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Perceptions Data

• Parent, student, staff satisfaction
• Questionnaires
• Interviews and focus groups
• Observations
• Values, Beliefs, Attitudes
• The Culture
• Survey EL1 EL2 Survey MS1 MS2

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Collection/Services Data Sources

• Utilization
• Days open
• Circulation
• Attendance
• Transactions
• Types of activities

• Collection
• Types of resources
• Collection maps
• Use patterns

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Other Measures and Data Sources

• Staff Profile
• Educational attainment
• Honors/recognition
• Years of practice
• Costs compared to other programs
• Percentage of distributed funds
• Per pupil expenditures
• Quantitative indicators
• Books per student
• Computers per student

• Profiles
• High School
• Middle School
• Elementary
• District

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Culture is how we

• Are organized
• Communicate
• Deal with mistakes or deviation
• Approach problems
• Honor and ritualize
• Induct new members

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Budget Advocacy

• Advocacy is not about us it is about the Target
• Audience and it is about R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
• respect their passion and POV
• respect their power/authority and influence
• respect their agenda
• respect their interests and motivations
• and most of all their TIME

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Making the Case The Plan

• Set your goal/objective
• Define the Message
• Target your Audience

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Budget GOALS

• What do you want
• to achieve?
• Time specific
• and measurable

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Achievement Indicators

• Staff is highly qualified
• Academic degrees attained
• Experience
• Professional recognition
• Professional involvement
• Teachers value our role
• Level of collaboration
• Action research
• Research models
• Utilization numbers

• Parents and community value our efforts
• Volunteers
• Business and civic connections
• Collaboration with town government and agencies
• Public awareness

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Achievement Indicators

• Students meet local benchmarks and perform well
  on group assessment
• Students/Staff receive recognition for individual
  achievement and performance

• Our program compares favorably with others with
  respect to
• Cost per pupil
• Librarianstudent ratios
• State standards
• Resources and Facilities
• Utilization

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Budget Alignment

• Find out what your customer needs and
• changing operations or culture when
• necessary to meet needs
• Who are you and what do you need?
• How and when can we best deliver this to you?
• What are you willing to pay?

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Alignment Indicators

• Aligned to district strategic plan
• Aligned to student achievement
• Aligned to program priorities, goals and
  objectives
• Aligned to professional growth
• Aligned to research and best practice
• Summary Summary 2

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Target Audiences

• Who are they and how do you motivate
• decision makers? Remember people do
• things for their reasons, not yours.
• What do you know about them, their priorities and
  interests?
• What do you need to find out?
• Whom do you know who might have the
• information you need?
• What research might you need to do?

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Target Audiences

• Assure the Target Group that
• their agenda will be assisted by
• what we have to offer
• This is who we are and what we do.
• This is when and where we do it, and for whom.

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Be Strategic!

• Where is the most appropriate place for you to
  communicate with your target audience?
• When is the most appropriate and convenient time
  for your target group to hear from you?

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Be Strategic!

• Who (is going to do it?) Who is your best
  presenter? Who writes well? Who has the most
  credibility? Who is the best match ? Who has
  media training?
• How? (the message) Stay on Message and keep it
  short and simple!

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Barriers

• Low profile/value
• Limited resources
• Schedules
• Circulation Policies
• Materials restrictions
• Intellectual Freedom/CIPA
• Seating/physical space
• Hours of operation
• Staffing
• Attitude

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Guiding Principles

• Proactive vs. Reactive
• Positive vs. Negative
• Future vs. Past
• Two-way vs. One-way
• Open vs. Closed
• Strongly themed vs. scattered messages

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Questions or Comments