Decision Rubrics for Education Leaders 
With Wallace Foundation support, a Web site is now available with rubrics focusing on data-informed decision making, financial resource allocation, governance and human resource allocation. These instruments have been piloted in four states and 20 districts. The site features:

• a complete set of the rubrics with questions that guide users to areas of greatest interest; 
• links to best practices;
• annotated resources; 
• connections to experts on conditions change who can assist your district in using the rubrics to make changes in policies and practices affecting leaders;
• usage guidelines that include: facilitating a rubrics discussion, prioritizing next steps and taking action. 

Listen to a recording of a webinar covering the resources' use.

Facilitation Tools for Tough Budget Times
IASB, IASBO and SAI invites you to take advantage of a new, free toolkit, "Facilitation Tools for Tough Budget Times." The tools provide a multi-step process that takes a board/superintendent team from brainstorming and initial prioritizing to identifying consequences and barriers to budget options, prioritization and quantification, and decision analysis. You may access the toolkit online.

Talking about the ABCs of ATBs: Iowa Schools Budget Communications Toolkit 
With several stakeholder groups in each school district, there is a terrific need to accurately communicate these issues in a manner that all audiences understand. Continual two-way dialogue is key to keeping individuals engaged with what is happening in a school district.

Iowa’s AEAs, in concert with Larry Sigel of Iowa School Information Services, have developed this communications toolkit to help school administrators respond and guide community conversations about what implications the governor’s budget cut has for local districts across the state and for education as a whole.

Update on by Tracy Harms

New Toolkit Now Available to Help You Make Long-Term Budget Decisions

 

School board member/superintendent teams have extremely difficult budget decisions to make for upcoming years and when it comes to making difficult decisions, the process is just as important as the final result.  

That's why IASB, IASBO and SAI, have partnered to release a new toolkit, "Facilitation Tools for Tough Budget Times." This suite of tools guides districts through the entire budget process, with exercises that take you from brainstorming and prioritizing to analyzing options and making final decisions so that you, along with your community, can make the right choices for your district and your students. These steps will give you an objective, concrete way of making tough decisions, as well as guidance to help you achieve community buy-in.

Access this online toolkit. Be proactive in preparing to make tough decisions, and let education goals guide the work, not just dollars and cents.