At least two board members in Indian Prairie School District 204 were skeptical when the district began working with a consultant to determine the “academic return on investment” for all programs above and beyond core instruction.
But those members — Mark Rising and Susan Demming — both said at their Nov. 9 meeting that they’re impressed and on board with the work conducted by District Management Group, which is reviewing a total of 224 initiatives to determine which provide the best bang for the buck.
“Our goal is to create a more nuanced and data-driven set of decisions that districts can use to make determinations on their programming,” said Simone Carpenter, director at District Management Group. “Over the past six months, we’ve been building an initiative inventory … to get a list of all initiatives with details on the outcomes, costs and populations served.”
Initiative spending: $126.2 million
So far, officials have learned that Indian Prairie spends $126.2 million a year on the 224 add-on programs it runs to support students, making up about 27% of operating expenses. The $126.2 million includes more than just the line-item costs to buy supplies or purchase licenses.
“We collect ‘fully loaded costs,’ which means time, people and dollars,” Carpenter said. So the most expensive programs are the ones on which staff members spend the most time.
District Management Group has worked with more than 50 school districts in Illinois, plus many more across the country, finding each to support a range of initiatives between 150 and 600. So while District 204’s 224 initiatives come in at the low end, Carpenter said there is still room to operate more efficiently by evaluating programs with high costs and low effectiveness.
“Out of a desire to do really well for students … school districts end up layering a lot of programs on top of each other,” Carpenter said. “A school district budget is like a lasagna … its hard when you have lasagna to make decisions, when you’re not really sure what layer contributed to what success.”
Recommendation: Create phased process for review
District Management Group has compiled detailed cost information for each Indian Prairie initiative and surveyed all building principals to create a chart showing which initiatives cost the most and least, combined with which are the most and least effective.
The company’s recommendation is to review programs determined to have high costs and low effectiveness first to decide if they should be eliminated, fixed, reduced, or segmented and targeted.
Another suggested step is to begin ensuring all initiatives have a point person in charge, a clear goal, a way to measure progress toward the goal, a data source for measurement and someone actively monitoring results. Only 53 district initiatives — or 24% — meet all of these standards, Carpenter said.
School board member Catey Genc asked how to best handle programs that aren’t actively monitored. Should the district start monitoring all of them now before deciding if any need to be cut or changed?
Carpenter suggested a phased approach, such as evaluating all programs related to math instruction one year and reading the next.
“Over time, you build the systems to monitor all of your programs,” Carpenter said. “When you have a clear owner responsible for monitoring (each program), then it becomes more manageable.”
Process to ‘make some important decisions’
District leaders said they’re excited to build a process for making decisions about which initiatives to keep, change or sunset. School board members urged caution in cutting programs prematurely, and administrators promised a thorough review.
“We’re not done with this work,” Superintendent John Price said, “and we’re going to continue to dig deeper.”
Still, with 224 initiatives in operation and a cost of $126.2 million, school board President Laurie Donahue said it’s important to see where efficiencies can be found.
“This is the beginning of a journey,” Donahue said. “But hopefully we make some important decisions — and some sooner rather than later.”
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