Superintendents and school boards are now embarking on “the most complicated budget year ever,” says a leading expert in K12 finance. The main reason is the expiration of ESSER relief funding that has helped drive academic recovery even as some districts have been slower to catch up from the disruptions of the last several years.
“You’ve got to overcommunicate right now,” says Marguerite Roza, a professor and director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. “Schooling will look different in the fall when ESSER is gone, and people don’t like surprises.”
The Ednuomics Lab’s overall mission is to help districts make smart decisions about the best way to use financial resources on behalf of students. Roza encourages superintendents and their teams to tap principals to communicate with staff and parents about how the end of ESSER will impact their schools.
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“Between now and September is a sprint and marathon—or a marathon at a sprint pace for all district leaders,” she adds.
Roza also hopes districts won’t cut new programs added since the pandemic to help students and staff catch up from unfinished learning. “It will be really easy in school districts to cut the last thing we’ve added and not take a hard look at what we’ve been doing for decades,” she contends. “We’ve concocted a system that needs some fresh eyes on it.”
In this episode of District Administration‘s newly launched “Talking Out of School” podcast, Roza discusses the near future of state education funding, Edunomics Labs’ school finance workshops for superintendents, and why district leaders shouldn’t plan to take time off this September.
You can listen to this episode at any time on Spotify, Podbean or down below.
