When it comes to budgeting, capital improvements are a must, but for Oxford Schools many of those things have been previously placed on the back-burner.
The district is still in need of developing a transportation plan; an infrastructure plan for roofs, buses, air conditioning units, playgrounds, gym floors and preventative maintenance; a curriculum plan for textbooks/ongoing adoption schedule, assessment software and expand interventions; and a technology plan for replacement schedule and maintenance after warranty.
These are all things the future administration is going to have to look at, according to Fred Shuback, controller for Oxford Schools.
‘In addition (to making up the $726,000 budget gap), we have to look into things . . . Is the fact that the high school roof leaking an issue? What do we really need to do with regards to transportation? You can only operate for so long,? he said. ‘We had a bond in 2010 for $45,000 and I know there were complaints that we didn’t get as much as would have been nice, but that’s all used up now.?
Superintendent Tim Throne agrees they need to start prioritizing what he calls the ‘strategic investments? and finding out where they want to put the money back into the district.
‘Right, wrong or indifferent, the last five years we’ve invested back into our people and not into our facilities,? Throne said. ‘Are we hearing loud and clear, we’ve made an investment in academics, now we need to make investment into transportation and facilities? Yep, we hear you.?
One of his plans as the newly-named superintendent is at the end of the school year, they start looking at a master facility plan beginning July 1 that not only looks at the longterm growth and facility plans, but identifies the things at each school that need to be priorities.
‘Let’s list 100 things at Leonard, 100 things at the middle school, 100 things at Clear Lake etc. Put an estimated price tag to that and let’s bring them all back together and let’s have a master district priority list and then start picking off those,? he explained. ‘Then if we’re going to say for the new budget, we’re going to strategically invest $250,000, then how do we want to invest that $250,000? Do we want to put it all into transportation for all new buses and all new things for transportation or do we want to invest $100,000 in transportation and $150,000 spread out amongst the buildings? We will need to pick those things that will have the most impact at those schools.?
Throne said all these things are part of the strategic planning process that was started earlier in the year. Part of that process included surveys to parents, which they are currently waiting to receive the feedback. Once they get that data back, Throne wants to evaluate what parents are saying.
‘If we get a ton of comments that playground equipment is the highest priority (from parents). The let’s feed all that information into our master facility plan and that will help us prioritize,? he said. ‘We need to not only have a master facility plan, we (have) got to have individual master plan for technology, master plan for transportation, master plan for each one of my buildings. All of those feed into a grand master plan.?
Throne said they’ve done similar things in the past where each school has written down things they want accomplished as part of the ‘school improvement? process, but part of the problem he said is that the list for school improvements was separate from the overall strategic plan.
‘We started going off in too many different directions and are killing ourselves. We can’t do that,? he said. ‘Those school improvement goals have to be incorporated with my overall strategic framework. It’s got to be one in the same and we are making sure we do that.?
Another part of the district’s current strategic planning process is identifying the district’s values and that part is very important to Throne because he believes everything else revolves around what district’s values are. In strategic plans of the past, he said the district has always identified student outcomes, student values and outlined what they wanted to see in their students, but no where did he see where they said what they wanted out of their employees or the community and he believes that’s held them back from going from ‘good to great.? He also noted that the values will impact the way they do their master plans.
‘I could jump right out there in a month and give you a master plan, but based upon our values is it building trust or eroding trust? Does that include collaboration or no collaboration? We got to identify what those top four or five district values are,? he continued. ‘How are we going to work and play on a daily basis, not only with each other, but our community and then incorporate those values? Because we then hold everyone accountable to those values and this is one of the reasons we’ve had issues in the past. Nowhere could I find in the history of Oxford, where Oxford identified its complete strategic statement. The strategic statement is ‘my vision, mission and my values.??
Even though it’s a ‘whole bunch of work to get done real fast,? Throne believes by the end of June they’ll be able to ‘identify the buckets? they want to put money into.
‘Let’s just identify x-amount that we’re going to invest in transportation, x-amount in curriculum, x-amount in people, x-amount in facilities,? he said. ‘We’re not going to be at the level of detail where we can say exactly how we’re going to spend that investment money, but I think what we’ll be able to say to our community and our employees (is) ‘We know we want to make strategic investments in these areas, we just can’t tell you down to the penny what they’re all going to be (yet).??