x

Interested in learning how and why creating equitable and sustainable systems can create meaningful change? Sign up for our monthly newsletter here!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Afton Partners

Contact

At Work At School

An Afton Partners Blog

All Posts

The Business of Education: A Lesson in Financial Sustainability for School Systems

Afton Conducts Professional Seminar on Innovation in Education for the University of Virginia’s MBA/MED Program Key takeaways: Finance is only one of several pillars for assessing and sustaining innovation in education. Real-world content, including case studies, lessons learned, and application of financial best practices, is becoming increasingly valuable to help cultivate financial acumen in education… Continued

Afton Facilitates Expert Panel on Sustaining Innovation at iNACOL 2017

Panel of national experts at iNACOL conference offer specific examples, case studies for operators October 24, 2017 Blog Summary: The panel of national experts offered opinions and guidance based on their experience in implementing innovative school models.  Some key takeaways from the session included: Focus on change management and communications: move beyond individuals and change… Continued

Affording Quality Schools – Remedy 8: Make a Commitment to Long-Term Planning and Stop Flying Blind

This is the final installment of Afton’s five-part blog series, “How Districts Can Afford High Quality Schools, Despite Enrollment Decline,” aimed at recognizing school district financial challenges associated with enrollment decline and offering some actionable recommendations for school districts facing enrollment loss, with or without charter schools. As we’ve outlined throughout this series, Afton identified 8 ways… Continued

Affording Quality Schools – Remedies 5, 6, and 7: Curb Agreements That Inflate Costs As Enrollment Declines

This is the fourth installment of Afton’s five-part blog series, “How Districts Can Afford High Quality Schools, Despite Enrollment Decline,” aimed at recognizing school district financial challenges associated with enrollment decline and offering some actionable recommendations for school districts facing enrollment loss, with or without charter schools. As we outlined earlier in this blog series, Afton identified… Continued

Affording Quality Schools – Remedies 3 and 4: Infrastructure Changes and Redistricting

This is the third installment of Afton’s five-part blog series, “How Districts Can Afford High Quality Schools, Despite Enrollment Decline,” aimed at recognizing school district financial challenges associated with enrollment decline and offering some actionable recommendations for school districts facing enrollment loss, with or without charter schools. As we outlined earlier in this blog series,… Continued

Affording Quality Schools – Solutions and Remedies 1 and 2: Reinventing Funding Formulas and Services with Costs That Seem Fixed

This is the second installment of Afton’s five-part blog series, “How Districts Can Afford High Quality Schools, Despite Enrollment Decline,” aimed at recognizing school district financial challenges associated with enrollment decline and offering some actionable recommendations for school districts facing enrollment loss, with or without charter schools. SOLUTIONS TO AFFORDING QUALITY SCHOOLS At Afton, our… Continued

How Districts Can Afford High Quality Schools Despite Enrollment Decline: Defining The Problem

This is the first installment of Afton’s five-part blog series, “How Districts Can Afford High Quality Schools, Despite Enrollment Decline,” aimed at recognizing school district financial challenges associated with enrollment decline and offering some actionable recommendations for school districts facing enrollment loss, with or without charter schools. Earlier this year, The Center on Reinventing Public… Continued

No Small Change: Managing Transitions in School Finance Leadership

Transitions in Finance Leadership Can Be Challenging. Here Are Some Ideas. – At any organization, unplanned changes in financial leadership create knowledge gaps that take time to fill. No less is this true at charter management organizations or public school districts. In particular, many CMOs are relatively small organizations with limited finance capacity other than the role of the CFO… Continued

Finding the Right Balance: Autonomy to Promote Equity—and Academic Success

School districts adjust to prevailing circumstances to promote autonomy, responsibility, and positive change – Much of Afton’s work in recent months has been toward providing principals and teachers at schools with discretion over a relatively higher proportion of total district spending. This in turn allows individual schools more flexibility and discretion in allocating resources that at most districts are already strained… Continued