Speakin' the Lingo - FTE's and Staffing Guidelines

One of the biggest hurdles in understanding any deep mysterious organization is to learn the lingo.  If you've ever heard a Dallas School Board trustee or a DISD rep sound like they're speaking another language, could be they are.  It's slow going, but after attending meetings for a couple of months now, I am slowing beginning to understand the natives.

Lingo Lesson One - FTE

If I had to guess at how many DISD parents out there know what an FTE is, I'd guess less than 2% - and that's probably 1.5% more than knew prior to April 2008.  This small little acronym,  however, is very powerful - it is a central piece to the process that brought an end to the Learning Centers and most of the magnets as we've known them.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent.  One full-time employee, whether an office assistant or a lead teacher is one FTE.  A part-time employee is .5 FTE.

Background:  The first litmus test any budget plan goes through is "what will the Feds pay for?"  The second is "what will the State pay for?"  The District pays for everything else.  Not surprisingly, these outside money sources come with a lot of strings attached. The Fed and the State put a LOT of conditions on what the Districts can and can't do - not only with Federal and State money, but with District money, too. 

Why we care about this: Last year and this year, the "tail that wags the dog" in DISD is Title I funds (Federal money).  The general idea is that districts should have a basic funding plan that covers the essentials for all schools in their district.  Title I funds are intended to fund programs that help "at risk" students.  My understanding is that "at risk" students are those who (due to a variety of factors) are at a higher than average risk for failing or dropping out.

The Feds want to make sure that the funds are used for extra programs, not to fill in random budget gaps.  So they have a list of requirements that they give to the State education agencies, and the States dole out the money and make sure the individual ISD's follow the rules.

(Bear with me - FTE's are coming...)

Okay, now to make sure the ISD does not use Title I funds to fill in random budget gaps, the ISD's have to submit proof of equitable budgeting to the State.  The ISD has to show the State that they have a plan that funds all comparable schools pretty much the same.  (Schools compare by size and type, i.e., elementary schools with similar enrollment levels would be comparable.) The Fed does not want to see Title I schools getting significantly less money than other schools, because that would make them think Title I funds are being used to fill in budget gaps, instead of for special programs.

ISD's have three ways they can figure comparable funding.  The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has this handy spreadsheet online that ISD's can download and use to decide which way works best for them.  If there is any school with funding outside of the comparable range - too high or too low as compared to "peers" - then funding for that school must be adjusted.  (I downloaded the spreadsheet last spring, but when I recently went to the TEA website, they don't have it public anymore.  It's listed as "coming soon".)

Finally, we get to FTE's.  Last year DISD administration chose to use the FTE model for figuring Title I compliant funding.  This is not a dollar for dollar comparision.  It is a staffing only comparison.  Simplified, the FTE model takes the student population at a school and does a ratio calculation - 1.0 FTE for "X" number of students.  Exceptions are they get at least one principal, one counselor, one security rep etc. regardless of student population, but almost every other staff and teacher position comes out of the FTE pool assigned to the campus.

Principals get a little leeway on how they use those FTE's to staff their school after cirriculum staffing requirements are met.  For example, if a principal wants an art teacher and a band director, but only has one FTE to spend, he/she might chose to share these teachers with another school.  That way, each school spends only .5 FTE for each position.

Lingo Lesson Two - Staffing Guidelines

Deciding how many FTE's each school campus or administration office gets for a school year is called Staffing Guidelines (aka Staffing Formulas).  The School Board trustees were recently asked to approve the Staffing Formulas for 2010-2011, which they were told were the same as the 2009-2010 numbers.  The staffing formulas were posted to the website for public review only 2 hours before they were presented to the DISD School Board for approval.  You can see them here:  non-campus staffing guidelines and campus staffing guidelines.  The Trustees approved the Staffing Guidelines in a split vote after much debate.

When the DISD Administration requested the Dallas School Board last spring to approve the staffing formulas for 2009-2010, many parents and community leaders were mad for two reasons.  First, the RIF (Reduction In Workforce) that had just happened in the Fall was already suppose to have "leveled" schools.  Second, the move appeared to be a passive-aggressive way to end the Learning Center and Vanguard/Academy/Magnet programs that were established under a recently expired desegregation court order.  Many top DISD administration officials and some of the Dallas School Board trustees made no secret of wanting to take funding away from Learning Centers and use it elsewhere (of those trustees, some were in favor of supporting Magnets, others not).  Title I funding compliance was an effective tool to use to do that.

As I mentioned before, the Trustees approved the Staffing Guidelines in a split vote after a lot of debate.  The split was similar, though not identical, to the vote in the Spring.  The debate at the last meeting was fueled in part by frustration that despite promises that numbers could be changed down the road, they would not be changed.  I have to say I have noticed that as a pattern - Trustees will request changes or more information at a briefing, and they don't always get it.  Change "down the road" is a lot easier said than done... but that's a topic for another blog post.

UPDATE MAY 2011: 
If there is one good thing that might come from the Great Budget Crisis of 2011, DISD magnet parents and comprehensive parents might finally both get what they have always asked for - equity and respect.  Magnet parents have lobbied for years to preserve their programs, and comprehensive parents have lobbied for equal funding.

Thanks to the Citizen's Budget Advisory Committee and to dedicated Trustees, the public now knows more than ever about how DISD spends it's money, and what programs really cost.  We now know that magnets don't cost as much as we thought they did, we know that the schools who lobby hardest get preserved, and we know that the District could have found more funding for comprehensives, had they had enough pressure to make more administrative cuts and management changes.

The future of DISD is now in the hands of the parents.  Will we take advantage of this opportunity?