RPIC ICS Implementation Digital Module 11: Leverage Funding

1. Current Practices Based on Common Assumptions

In segregated programs and rooms and within tiered instruction, separate funding sources are accessed and policies are written to support each program, typically by eligibility area, often causing a replication of services and soaring costs. These policies and programs are focused on fixing what is perceived as student deficits, rather than transforming instruction in Tier 1. Often policies are compliance-driven and not quality driven, resulting in meeting the letter of many non-discrimination regulations but never reaching the spirit in which the regulations were written. These separate programs are expensive due to the costs involved in the initial identification of students, as well as the additional costs of remediating services when we as educators are not successful the first time in Tier 1, thus resulting in the duplication of staff, materials, and classes. As discussed in the previous Digital Modules, separate programs and classes are quick fixes but are not focused on long-term solutions, which inevitably results in higher costs in the long run.

For example, separate programs, by default, do not develop the collective equity capacity to teach a range of student needs. To illustrate, if the second-grade teacher sends students out of the room for reading help, then the next year, when students need reading help, she will send students out again. Sending students out of the room this year will not increase her capacity to teach students reading next year. Thus, the way that separate programs and classrooms de-skill teachers and limit their growth is yet another hidden cost of segregated programs.

2. Equitable Best Practices

Funding at the school level should be merged at the student level to better meet the needs of all learners, in a proactive manner, aligned with the Equity Non-Negotiables, in support of the Integrated Comprehensive Systems Framework and Process. For example, principals of successful ICS schools have drawn across funding sources, such as from Title I, IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act) funds, district minority achievement money, comprehensive school reform grant funds, and English Language Learner (ELL) funds, to support the proactive work of moving from a deficit-based system to a proactive system. Administrators should begin developing their budget first by allocating funds for staff. Next, they should allocate funds to support the individual needs of students. The Co-Plan to Co-Serve to Co-Learn (C3) Team should determine student needs based on their Individual Skills at a Glance (ISAAG) or Individualized Education Plans (IEP’s) and then request the appropriate materials/funding for each student. Lastly, administrators should allocate funds specifically for developing the capacity of each and every teacher, by supporting co-planning and co-serving.

Funding and the reallocation of resources are critical areas of knowledge for school leaders to utilize to implement the Integrated Comprehensive Systems Framework and Process. Even with the financial inequities between schools and districts, and even with the pressures of underfunded or unfunded federal and state mandates, school leaders have no excuse for not fully implementing a proactive integrated system for all learners. This requires rethinking educational structures and instruction for all students in ways that will maximize staff and student achievement and growth. As leaders, we can no longer ethically continue to develop and sustain segregated programs, classrooms, and practices of grouping students by ability when we have the knowledge and skills to re-align funding to intentionally interrupt such deficit-based practices.

3. ‘Operationalizing’ Our Work

There are two activities provided to assist the School Leadership Team (SLT) in cross-checking school-based expenditures with their Equity Non-Negotiables to provide more proactive options. The first activity provides the SLT with an opportunity to review the expenditures compared to the Equity Non-Negotiables, while the second activity is used to determine what other options would be more appropriate and better align with the Equity Non-Negotiables.

In Table 1, a screenshot of the first page of the handout provided (attached to this Digital Module) is a tool for the SLT to use to cross-check expenditures with the Equity Non-negotiables.

Table 1:  Leveraging Funding with ICS Equity Non-Negotiables Handout

Table 2 below, is an example of a school-based funding analysis to demonstrate those expenditures that do not align with the Equity Non-Negotiables and recommendations of how the SLT believed funding could be reallocated in a proactive, integrated, comprehensive system for equity.

Table 2:  Funding Analysis Example

Educators should set funds aside to be able to realign staff for temporary periods of time to support students with significant behavioral needs. Funds should also be held in abeyance for new students who may move into the school or district and may have significant needs. Funding and the reallocation of resources are both critical areas of knowledge for school leaders to utilize in order to implement a proactive compressive system for all learners.

4. Creating Our Plan: Cornerstone 4: Leverage Policy and Funding; Digital Module 11/Step 11: Leverage Funding:

In the next ICS Application, you’ll, discuss and then delineate the current practices that must be interrupted, and discuss future recommendations of how to share the information in this Digital Module along with the steps necessary to ‘operationalize’ such recommendations.