School Wise Press SARC Services

SARC BITE 22 | FEBRUARY 24, 2004

Elections Require That You Tell Your Story All Year Long

The March 2 election is just one week away. Are you taking advantage of all opportunities to tell your district's story? Because when you go to your voters and ask for help, they will place your plea in context. Whether it's bond funding you seek or a parcel tax, your voters will look beyond your campaign mailings and phone calls. They are likely to wonder why you need funds, and if you are managing resources wisely.

Your SARCs should help provide that context, especially in the areas of school finance and utilization of resources. This means going beyond the pure compliance approach to SARCs. But you'll find that when the next election rolls around in November, your efforts will be well rewarded. Here are some suggestions for putting your annual reports to work in ways that win votes.

COMPARE YOUR DISTRICT'S FINANCIAL RATIOS TO YOUR NEIGHBORS'

Your district level accountability report could benefit from comparing your key financial facts to those of your neighboring districts. You can find this information online. The Ed-Data Partnership has put together a free and easy-to-use set of financial analyses and reports. Most powerful, perhaps, is a query tool that lets you compare your district's finances with those of any selected set of other districts. You could select all districts in your county, or just districts with ADAs like yours. You could even select districts with teacher salaries like yours, if you like. The ability to see how your district compares to others, and to view your financial key factors over ten years time, will no doubt help you tell your story to a puzzled public.

One new feature added recently by the intrepid souls at Ed-Data Partnership is a view of teacher salary schedules, benefit schedules, and supplemental salary schedules. Although the most recent information available is from the 2001-02 fiscal year, this is valuable information. To get started, you can either go to their home page, find the "Report" panel and select "DIstrict" to find the reports you are seeking. Or you can go directly to the district level reports. Click on the drop-down icon adjacent to the "Select Report" item near the top of the screen. Note that the Ed-Data selection process requires that you first choose the county, then the district, then the report you want to view.

COMMUNICATING YOUR RESOURCE NEEDS IN YOUR ANNUAL REPORTS

Your annual accountability reports are a perfectly appropriate place to relate how the fiscal crisis has affected resources, teachers, after-school programs, student clubs, sports and facilities. This should be reported factually, candidly and clearly, in a voice consistent with the purpose of accountability reports: disclosure. If you've cut back programs, shortened the school day, laid off aides, let your public know in a straightforward manner. Your narrative should, of course, refrain from lobbying and should not mention upcoming elections.

If your district's schools are crowded, measure crowding. Your local fire department will know the capacity rating of your school buildings. This is determined when plans are approved. Those capacity ratings can be compared against the sum of average daily attendance (ADA) plus staff counts on an average day. The resulting figure, expressed as a percentage, is probably the best measure you have of capacity utilization. Any factor greater than 100 percent utilization should tell your public exactly how crowded each of your schools are.

Supt. Larry Maw in San Marcos Unified has used his accountability reports to report on resource utilization (and more) with considerable success. Read about his efforts in a previous edition of this newsletter. Supt. Tom Mohr at San Mateo UHSD has done the same, using SARCs to help prove to his voting public the crying need for modernization of his district's high schools. (Note that both San Marcos and San Mateo are clients of School Wise Press.)

CONCLUSION

Tough times call for hard facts, and smart ways of sharing those facts with your public. If you make full use of the tools at hand to tell your district's story — from financial reports to annual school and district reports — you are sure to have an easier time. The common elements of a good story require design and writing that really shine. However compelling your district's story may be, you should avail yourself of help in telling it well. The next time you turn to your voters or your parents for help, they'll be better prepared to put your pleas in perspective.

OTHER RESOURCES FOR PUTTING TODAY'S FISCAL CRISIS IN AN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

John Merrow, the broadcast journalist whose reports you may have heard under the moniker of "The Merrow Report," just completed an astonishing hour-long television feature on California's strained financial support for K-12 education. It is "First to Worst," and it can be previewed here.

The Prop. 13 tax revolt is the backdrop for Merrow's tale, but he begins by showing Santa Monica-Malibu's superintendent John Deasey leafletting parents as they drop their children off at school. "Don't forget to vote," he urges them. He doesn't have to say why it matters. His parents already knew that the parcel tax measure up for election in June 2003 was a make-or-break matter for his district. It barely passed, attaining a few hundred votes over the two-thirds majority needed. The drama of this election is only the first of many in this extraordinary piece of feature reporting. Read a review.

If your computer includes audio capability, you might enjoy this KQED-FM interview.

You can order the one-hour program in DVD format.