Strategic Fiscal Leadership in Elementary and Secondary Education

Catalog description

This course is designed to help doctoral students understand equity and adequacy issues relating to education finance in K-12 schools and school districts and how to lead financial matters within that context. As such, the course examines school finance from various perspectives: historical, governmental (local, state and federal), political, philosophical, legal and practical. The course provides for school finance including an examination of how school districts make financial decisions within political, philosophical, legal and practical contexts. The various roles and responsibilities of school and school district leaders in financial planning and budgeting are also discussed with applicable depth and breadth. To that end, the course examines: 1) the essentials of public school funding; 2) revenue streams; 3) the budget development/preparation cycle and management and school district audits; 4) strategies, systems and controls that school districts use to maximize district revenues and control expenditures; 5) legal and policy-based fiduciary responsibilities; 6) bidding, purchasing and managing school facilities, supplies, materials, services and resources; 7) financial projections; 8) debt financing and 9) employee benefit, compensation and post-employment (pensions/retirement) programs. All of these matters are explored to enable students to understand the systems and contexts for current educational resource allocation and use patterns and how to reallocate resources to enhance efficiency and effectiveness to produce more equitable and socially just schools/systems and increase student achievement.