Greetings. I hope you are enjoying the cooler but sunny days and the excited faces of children learning. Our mission is that all children learn and are engaged. To do that, we hire high quality teachers and provide high quality professional development. Behind every school full of children and teachers there is a system of supports and, without these supports, the basic function of teaching would be very difficult.
In Burlington, Central Office and building administration is about eight percent of the entire budget. With 900 employees, a $60 million budget to manage, and more than 10 campuses and buildings that range from 55-112 years old, we are a lean machine! Beyond principals are the District functions of facilities, curriculum, special education, grants, human resources, instructional technology and business. If these central functions did not exist, you would be cleaning and repairing your own buildings, ordering and setting up your own technology. There would be no consistent curriculum or professional development to keep us moving forward. You would be dealing with legal issues in special education and would lack basic support such as payroll and contract management.
We are undertaking an analysis of our District services this year. In addition to the changes in the Diversity & Equity Office that I have spoken of earlier, Facilities will also be restructured. Joel FitzGerald and Mark Irish served as Interim Co-Directors for the summer and did a phenomenal job with the many projects happening across the District. Joel and Mark have agreed to continue in this role for the school year. We will begin a director search in the winter/spring and are fortunate to have their complementary skills to keep Facilities moving forward.
At Central Office we have very few administrative support staff. In Grants this summer, the .5 administrative assistant and the 1.0 Afterschool bookkeeper/administrative assistant both left to move south! In reanalyzing needs, Grants decided to create a 1.0 administrative assistant and .5 bookkeeper. We also have a 1.0 receptionist position that serves as the administrative assistant for the Director of Operations. We have no administrative assistant for IT, Diversity & Equity and only .5 for Curriculum. Looking at our needs with a critical eye of making sure District services can continue to serve the school efficiently, we are pairing the .5 bookkeeper position with .5 of the receptionist position, leaving .5 of the receptionist position to be filled. (Are you still following the math portfolio problem?!) To the remaining .5 receptionist position we are adding 10 hours of support for IT, which given the 1:1 initiative and the Partnership for Change, is minor, but enough to keep purchasing and payroll running smoothly.
In short, we simply reorganized duties and positions and at the end of the day, added 10 administrative assistant hours of total support to Central Office. There are more changes—of the visual kind—which you will see the next time you walk through our front door! In trying to meet the needs of additional staff that the Partnership for Change brings and those who work at a floating worksite in the reception area, we finally purchased professional workstations which afford privacy to those who work in that area and will house staff who had no place to work in the past couple of years.
All of these changes have been made with a focus on supporting the work of the classroom teacher and students, while also staying within the resources we have. It has been a busy summer and promises to be a busy year.
Jeanné
BSD Superintendent's Blog 