+ Individual Finance Project Option 4 - Interviews ELPS 664 – Bennett – Spring 2015

+ W.E.S.M. – Contextual History Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets, or WESM, was reincorporated into three Magnet Schools in Previously, it was known as Westchester High School, and was opened in WESM was formed for budgetary reasons, as declining enrollment caused a crisis of funding for the school. During reincorporation, and the years that have followed, the school has seen massive turnover in teaching staff. Out of our 62 teachers, approximately half are new to the campus, a half of those are also new to the teaching profession. Budgets are not typically discussed, or communicated through any means besides School Site Council. I have been teaching at WESM/Westchester for 11 years. My father taught at Westchester for 18 years, starting in 1991 – I have along institutional memory.

+ W.E.S.M. Budget Three Magnet schools = three school budgets. However, the schools share resources, staff, student placement, etc. to make each magnet more comprehensive. One School Site Council for all three schools, votes on small budget of discretionary funds. Historically-based budget, a lot of which is dictated by LAUSD. Special Budget items include: Title 1 Funding Special Ed. Program EL Funding (very small at our school, approx $300) Common Core Implementation funding

+ Interview Methodology Goal/Question: I wanted to discover, and potentially shed light on, how such a large influx of new teachers may contribute to understanding of the school budget process on our campus. I identified potential participants, largely by years of teaching, and by schedules in common with myself to facilitate interviews. I selected two first year teachers, two teachers around the middle of their career, but new to the school, and two veteran teachers that have been at WESM a long time. I developed a short interview question set, and interviewed each participant in person. Participants are kept anonymous so that I may share raw feedback with SSC and administrators.

+ Interview Questions and Summary of Responses 1. What information do you get from your district, school, or principal regarding budgets or the budget process: “Virtually None” “ Very little, unless you are on SCC” “Only information that pertains to the budget allocated to my team/department/club” “Nothing unless I am told to join a committee to be involved with it.” “It has varied from administrator to administrator, but usually [none].” “I have not received anything on the budget or process unless it’s buried in the pack of paperwork they gave us.”

+ 2. How often do you get budget information for you school or district from outside sources (Union, Newspapers, Websites, Etc.)? What are the outside sources? What type of info. do you get? “Never, I just hear ‘we’ll check the budget’ from outside sources.” “Never” “Maybe some budget info about salaries every couple of weeks through the union or the UTLA paper.” “I get general information about district allocations from the news. It’s reliable but not detailed.” “I don’t receive any outside information. You have to know how to seek it out.” I get something once a year regarding my money in Student Body funds. UTLA usually has information but I don’t get it from anyone else. It seems questionably reliable.”

+ 3. Do you understand the schools budget priorities and how budget decisions are made? “ No, it sucks.” “I really don’t understand our budget priorities at this school, but I do understand the process for how decisions are made.” “No I really don’t get it. Who gets to decide?” “No I don’t understand. We don’t have a full time nurse, or working computers, it seems like some of these things should be priorities to us.” “Yes, staffing priorities are usually discussed around the formation of the matrix each year.” “No, I guess it’s a vote.”

+ 4. How much or little do the school’s budget priorities reflect your personal vision for the school? “The school’s budget priorities doesn’t reflect my personal vision because I don’t know anything about it.” “I feel it does somewhat.” “I can’t answer because no one has ever told me what the school’s budget priorities are.” “I don’t know. I don’t know enough about it.” “I’m not sure.” “Sure it reflects it a lot. If I don’t know if I have money budgeted for my department, then how could I plan?”

+ 5. Do you know how to find, or are you given access to the school’s budget annually? “No” “You can go to a webpage and easily get the school budget each year.” “No” “I think I can have access of it if I ask for it.” “No, I am not given it, but yes I can access it.” “Not that I know of.”

+ 6. Do you want to be more or less involved in the process? “I think more involved would be nice.” “I would like to be more involved.” “I would not like to be involved at all.” “Probably a little more involved.” “Maybe more.” “Yes, somewhat more involved in the process.”

+ 7. What role does legislation and state law play in our budget decisions at WESM? “I really don’t know.” “We are funded by state and local and federal grants. Laws are the foundation of our budget.” “I’m sure laws play a large role but I don’t know any of the specifics.” “Probably a lot more than I realize.” “It’s trickle down – State to District to School. And per pupil funding remains in place.” “I have no idea.”

+ 7. How long have you been teaching? “First year teacher” “38 years” “15 years” “24 years, or 25?” “8 years” “First year I have been teaching.”

+ Observations from Results I really would have liked to been able to have more time interviewing teachers. I often had follow up questions that I felt I didn’t have time to ask in order to honor their time. First year teachers seemed to have little knowledge and many misconceptions about the school budget. Length of service did not seem to guarantee more knowledge of budget procedures. It seemed instead that teachers only know budget procedures if they served in a leadership capacity on campus.

+ Observations from Results, cont’d… I was surprised to find that teachers were not frequently getting any budget info from newspapers or outside sources. The labor union is doing a better job informing teachers about budget issues than the district. Teachers are not reading frequent s sent by the district about the district budget, nor are they accessing budget information on the district’s website. Teachers are unaware how much laws and legislation impacts school budgets.

+ My Report to Leadership I discussed my interviews and my observations with local school leadership, and with the Vice Principal. The School Site Council agreed that budget information should be sent to teachers, and it should be more frequently stated that teachers can and should participate at School Site Council meetings, where budget decisions are made. The Vice Principal agreed that more could be done, and she said she felt information had not been historically shared because there is little wiggle room in the budget, and discretionary funds are small and spent by the School Site Council. There is now a plan to disseminate the school budget to teachers, and to more frequently remind teachers about budget decisions scheduled for School Site Council meetings.