Budget Tools

A RESOURCE GUIDE FOR

UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY SCHOOLS Using Budget Tools at Community Schools

October 2012

Prepared by:

Iris Hemmerich

Urban Strategies Council

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©Urban Strategies Council, October 2012

Using Budget Tools at Community Schools

Table of Contents

A Resource Guide for Understanding Community Schools .......................................................................... 2

Updating the Resource Guide ................................................................................................................... 4

Additional Community School Resources ................................................................................................. 4

Our Community School work with Oakland Unified School District ............................................................. 5

Community School Budget Tools: Literature Review ................................................................................... 6

Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Review ....................................................................................................................................................... 6

1. Purpose and Use of the Budget Tools ........................................................................................... 6

2. Long vs. Short Term Fiscal Mapping ............................................................................................. 7

3. Promising Practices ....................................................................................................................... 7

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 7

Community School Budget Tools: Annotated Bibliography .......................................................................... 8

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A Resource Guide for Understanding Community Schools

INTRODUCTION

Urban Strategies Council has collected and reviewed more than 175 evaluations, case studies,

briefs and reports for use by those considering or planning a community school or community

school district. Our intention is to provide interested individuals and stakeholders the

resources they need to better understand the unique structure and core components of

community schools. The promising practices, recommendations, tools and information shared

in this document have been culled from documents representing the last 20 years of research

and documentation of community schools across the United States.

We highlighted 11 content areas that we believe to be the most foundational for understanding

community schools. Within each of the content areas, you will find:

1. A literature review: The literature reviews for each content area are organized

around core questions and provide a synthesis of the most commonly identified

solutions and responses to each question, as well as highlights, promising practices,

challenges and recommendations.

2. An annotated bibliography: We gathered and annotated literature in each of the

content areas to underscore key themes, some of which include: best practices,

exemplary sites, models and tools. The annotations vary by content area in order to

draw attention to the most pertinent information. For example, the Evaluations content

area includes annotations of the evaluation methodology and indicators of success.

The 11 content areas include the following:

1. Community School Characteristics

Provides a general overview of the structure, function, core elements, programs and

services of a community school.

2. Planning and Design

Explores the general planning and design structures for community schools, and

discusses the initial steps and central components of the planning and design process, as

well as strategies for scaling up community schools.

3. Equity Frameworks and Tools

Examines literature and tools that can be adapted to an equity framework for

community schools. We included equity frameworks and tools that explore

disproportionality and the monitoring of disparities and demographic shifts.

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4. Collaborative Leadership

Addresses how to build, strengthen and expand the collaborative leadership structure at

community schools. Collaborative leadership is a unique governance structure that

brings together community partners and stakeholders to coordinate a range of services

and opportunities for youth, families and the community.

5. Family and Community Engagement

Explores how community and family engagement operates as well as the challenges for

actualizing it at the site level. Family and community engagement is a unique

component of community schools in which the school, families, and community actively

work together to create networks of shared responsibility for student success.

6. Data Collection and Analysis

Addresses the outcomes measured at community schools, methods for collecting data

at community schools, and short and long term indicators.

7. Assessment Tools

Includes tools used to measure outcomes at community schools.

8. Community School Evaluations

Provides evaluations of community school initiatives with special attention paid to

methodology, indicators of success, findings and challenges.

9. Community School Funding

Explores how to leverage revenue streams and allocate resources at community schools.

10. Budget Tools

Includes tools that support the process of budgeting and fiscal mapping.

11. Community School Sustainability

Explores promising practices for creating sustainability plans, partnership development

and leveraging resources for the future.

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UPDATING THE RESOURCE GUIDE

Urban Strategies Council will continue its efforts to update the Resource Guide with the most

current information as it becomes available. If you know of topics or resources that are not

currently included in this guide, please contact Alison Feldman, Education Excellence Program,

at [email protected]. We welcome your ideas and feedback for A Resource Guide for

Understanding Community Schools.

ADDITIONAL COMMUNITY SCHOOL RESOURCES

National:

The Coalition for Community Schools

http://www.communityschools.org/

The National Center for Community Schools (Children’s Aid Society)

http://nationalcenterforcommunityschools.childrensaidsociety.org/

Yale University Center in Child Development and Social Policy

http://www.yale.edu/21c/training.html

Regional:

The Center for Community School Partnerships, UC Davis

http://education.ucdavis.edu/community-school-partnerships

Center for Strategic Community Innovation

http://cscinnovation.org/community-schools-project/about-cscis-community-schools-

project/community-school-initiative-services-coaching-and-ta/’

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Our Community School work with

Oakland Unified School District

Urban Strategies Council has a long history of working with the Oakland Unified School District

(OUSD) to support planning for improved academic achievement. Most recently, we helped

develop and support the implementation of OUSD’s five-year strategic plan, Community

Schools, Thriving Students. Adopted by the Board of Education in June 2011, the plan calls for

building community schools across the district that ensure high-quality instruction; develop

social, emotional and physical health; and create equitable opportunities for learning. Urban

Strategies Council has worked with the school district, community members and other

stakeholders to support this system reform in several ways:

� Community Schools Strategic Planning: Urban Strategies Council facilitated six School

Board retreats over a 14-month period to help develop the strategic plan. As part of that

process, the District created 14 task forces to produce recommendations for the plan, with

Urban Strategies Council facilitating one task force and sitting on several others.

� Full Service Community Schools Task Force: Urban Strategies Council convened and co-

facilitated the Full Service Community Schools and District Task Force, which created a

structural framework and tools for planning and implementation, and produced a report

with a set of recommendations that formed the foundation of the strategic plan.

� Community Engagement in Planning: Urban Strategies Council partnered with the district

to educate and engage more than 900 school and community stakeholders on how

community schools could best serve them.

� Planning for Community Schools Leadership Council: Urban Strategies Council has been

working with OUSD’s Department of Family, School and Community Partnerships to lay the

groundwork for building an interagency, cross-sector partnership body that will provide

high-level system oversight and support, and ensure shared responsibility and coordination

of resources towards the vision of healthy, thriving children supported through community

schools.

� Convening Workgroups: Urban Strategies Council continues to partner with the District to

convene and facilitate several workgroups developing specific structures, processes, and

practices supporting community school implementation, as well as informing the eventual

work of the Community Schools Leadership Council.

� African American Male Achievement Initiative: Urban Strategies Council is a partner in

OUSD’s African American Male Achievement Initiative (AAMAI), a collaboration supporting

efforts to close the achievement gap and improve other key outcomes for African American

males in OUSD. Urban Strategies Council has developed data-based research; explored

promising practices, programs and policies inside and outside the school district; analyzed

the impact of existing system-wide policies; and developed policy recommendations to

improve outcomes in various areas identified by the AAMAI Task Force.

� Boys and Men of Color: Urban Strategies Council is the Regional Convener for the Oakland

Boys and Men of Color site, which adopted community schools as a vehicle to improve

health, education and employment outcomes for boys and men of color.

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Community School Budget Tools: Literature Review

Introduction

Budgeting is an important component of community school planning because it helps clarify the

fiscal needs, resources, funding gaps and projected costs of the initiative. Budget tools are

critical for not only maintaining balanced finances but for helping sustain community school

initiatives. We used three central research questions to guide the literature review of

community school budget tools:

1. What is the purpose of the budget tool and how is it used?

2. Is the budget tool intended for long or short term fiscal mapping?

3. Are there identified promising practices for budgeting?

Published research on community school and other relevant budget tools from 2000-2011 has

been included as part of this literature review. Unfortunately, while there is sufficient research

regarding funding and sustainability at community schools, there seems to be a lack of publicly

accessible budget tools aside from those published by the Finance Project. We were not able to

identify community school initiatives that had made publicly available the budget tools they

used throughout the process.

Review

1. Purpose and Use of the Budget Tools

The purpose of the “Cost Worksheet for Out-of-School Time and Community School Initiatives”

is to aid the process of creating an operating budget. It intends to help program developers

identify the range of costs that their initiative will incur1. Program developers use the

worksheet by filling in the different categories of program and infrastructure cost assumptions

and the corresponding cash expense of in-kind contribution.

The other two budget tools published by the Finance Project are intended for Promise

Neighborhood Initiatives, but can be adapted to community schools because of their similar

financial circumstances. “Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Preparing Budgets for

Promise Neighborhood Initiatives” provides guidance on how to use the attached budget

worksheets2. It should be used as a set of instructions and for how and why to complete a cost

development tool. “Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Mapping Funds for Promise

1 Langford, Barbara Hanson. “Cost Worksheet for Out-of-School Time and Community School Initiatives.” The

Finance Project, September 2002. Web. 19 December 2011.

<http://76.12.61.196/publications/costworksheet.pdf>. 2 Martinez, Laura and Jennifer Gager Holland. “Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Preparing Budgets

for Promise Neighborhood Initiatives.” The Finance Project, August 2011. Web. 14 May 2012.

<http://www.financeproject.org/publications/SCRToolforPreparingBudgets.pdf>.

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Neighborhood Initiatives” makes the case for fiscal mapping, especially for initiatives looking to

receive federal planning grants3. It also provides an overview of the fiscal mapping process

including how to conduct a fiscal mapping study, along with worksheets for data collection.

2. Long vs. Short Term Fiscal Mapping

All of the budget tools address both short and long-term fiscal mapping, although more

worksheets and checklists are provided for short-term fiscal mapping.

3. Promising Practices

The Financial Project identified the following promising practices for fiscal mapping: (1) clarify

what an initiative needs financing for; (2) estimate an initiative’s fiscal needs; (3) identify an

initiative’s current resources; (4) assess an initiative’s funding gaps; and (5) identify appropriate

funding sources and financing strategies4. There were also seven specific steps identified for

successfully completing a fiscal mapping study. These steps include: (1) determine the goals for

the study; (2) identify roles and responsibilities; (3) design the study approach; (4) gather

needed resources; (5) collect data; (6) analyze data; and (7) communicate results5.

Conclusion

The documentation of a community school site or initiative’s current financial status is an

integral part of developing realistic financial projections. Developing a budget also helps

facilitate the development of an accurate program cost estimate, which is needed to sustain

community school initiatives. Moreover, a balanced budget is critical at community schools

because it can be used to show funders that their investment is being used wisely and

responsibly.

3 Joseph, Mathew H. and Lori Connors-Tadros. “Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Mapping Funds for

Promise Neighborhood Initiatives.” The Finance Project, August 2011. Web. 14 May 2012.

<http://www.financeproject.org/publications/SCRToolforMapping.pdf>. 4 Martinez, Laura and Jennifer Gager Holland. “Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Preparing Budgets

for Promise Neighborhood Initiatives.” The Finance Project, August 2011. Web. 14 May 2012.

<http://www.financeproject.org/publications/SCRToolforPreparingBudgets.pdf>. 5 Joseph, Mathew H. and Lori Connors-Tadros. “Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Mapping Funds for

Promise Neighborhood Initiatives.” The Finance Project, August 2011. Web. 14 May 2012.

<http://www.financeproject.org/publications/SCRToolforMapping.pdf>.

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Community School Budget Tools: Annotated Bibliography

Cost Worksheet for Out-of-School Time and Community School Initiatives

Langford, Barbara Hanson. The Finance Project, September 2002. Web. 19 December 2011.

<http://76.12.61.196/publications/costworksheet.pdf>.

The “Cost Worksheet for Out-of-Time and Community School Initiatives” describes how to

develop an operating budget for community schools and provides sample worksheets to aid the

process. The document identifies two main cost areas: program costs and system-wide

infrastructure costs. In order to make the initial case to potential funders, the document

suggests the school document its current financial status and develop realistic financial

projections.

� Tools: Operating budget worksheets

Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Preparing Budgets for Promise Neighborhood

Initiatives

Martinez, Laura and Jennifer Gager Holland. The Finance Project, August 2011. Web. 14 May

2012.

<http://www.financeproject.org/publications/SCRToolforPreparingBudgets.pdf>.

Although intended for Promise Neighborhoods, the Finance Project’s budget tool can also be

utilized for fiscal mapping at community school sites. Both Promise Neighborhoods and

community schools are built on the same core principles and focus on quality education, family

and community engagement and a continuum of supports. Furthermore, community schools

and Promise Neighborhoods face similar financial circumstances such as time-limited grants,

narrow, categorical funding streams and overall inconsistent revenue. The budget tool

identifies five key steps for building a stable support base:

1. Clarify what an initiative needs financing for;

2. Estimate an initiative’s fiscal needs;

3. Identify an initiative’s current resources;

4. Assess an initiative’s funding gaps; and

5. Identify appropriate funding sources and financing strategies.

Sections I and II provide guidance for calculating different costs and discuss how to use

budgeting worksheets.

� Best practices: See five steps above

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Sustaining Community Revitalization: A Tool for Mapping Funds for Promise Neighborhood

Initiatives

Joseph, Mathew H. and Lori Connors-Tadros. The Finance Project, August 2011. Web. 14 May

2012.

<http://www.financeproject.org/publications/SCRToolforMapping.pdf>.

Although intended to help Promise Neighborhood initiatives, the Finance Project’s fiscal

mapping tool can also help community schools identify and leverage funding. Section I explains

how to conduct a fiscal mapping study through seven key steps, which include:

1. Determine the goals for the study;

2. Identify roles and responsibilities;

3. Design the study approach;

4. Gather needed resources;

5. Collect data;

6. Analyze data; and

7. Communicate results.

Section I also discusses the special challenges of fiscal mapping for Promise Neighborhoods and

provides checklists to help guide the mapping process. The following section provides tools for

data collection, including worksheets covering a number of budgetary and fiscal concerns.

� Best practices: See seven steps above

� Tools:

1. Worksheet A: What Funds Currently Support the Cradle-to-Career Services?

2. Worksheet B: Analyzing Funding Streams

3. Appendix B: Potential Federal Funding Sources