Afton was proud to partner with Boston Public Schools (BPS) alongside UPD Consulting to reimagine Boston’s school funding policy. The BPS Reimagine School Funding Project (RSF) was an 18-month process that brought together student, family, community, and school leader voices in 2022-23.
At the onset, the partners acknowledged that with an enrollment decline of 16.2% over 10 years – a phenomenon affecting different schools and student groups unequally – there was concern that the current weighted student funding (WSF) model may not have been equitably distributing resources as intended. Additionally, the District faced two sustainability challenges: 1) the end of ESSER Federal Covid relief funding and 2) sustaining the “hold harmless” strategy for schools experiencing declining enrollment since the pandemic. Finally, comprehensive changes like the district wide expansion of inclusive education environments and new multilingual learner programming raised the urgency of ensuring that equitable funding was in place to allow these initiatives to be successful. In sum, Boston, like many other major urban districts, faced the conundrum of decreasing enrollment while the proportion of BPS students requiring specialized support continued to rise.
While BPS made incremental funding changes from 2012-22 to help offset this changing population, the goal of our work was to support BPS in designing a funding policy that more equitably supports each child to achieve and thrive, with a focus on the BPS students and families who have been historically marginalized. Afton and UPD designed this project to center the broader BPS Community as part of both the process and the ultimate funding decision. Working groups designed funding model options and impact assessments, conducted community engagement, and utilized principal expertise to guide the implementation. This process leveraged the BPS Racial Equity Planning Tool which lays out a six-step process to ensure each decision we make is aimed at closing opportunity gaps and advancing racial equity.
At the completion of the project, the Community Member Steering Committee made final recommendations for a school funding policy to the Superintendent, which was categorized into three primary funding policy components:
- Funding Allocations: The methodologies which are used to calculate staffing,
resource, and/or funding allocation amounts to schools - Funding Use Policy: The rules and guidelines which specify, for each specific
allocation, the degree of flexibility a school has over use of that allocation. - Budgeting Process: The process in which the District, schools, and the community go through to determine staffing, resources, and funding in each school.
Funding allocations are currently the primary way schools receive funding to meet their student and staff needs and innovate around education. The Steering Committee heard a resounding desire for families to have a predictable baseline set of services within every school at BPS. Members also recognized the local context of each school community, and the importance of the school leader’s voice in resourcing decisions. The recommendations separate funding allocations from funding use policies, and as such, set forth guidelines for a baseline set of allocated positions in addition to fully flexible funding. Flexibility is built into the funding use policy to allow community input into the innovative adjustments that school leaders and families may want to see to meet their own school community’s needs.
These recommendations are intended to be a roadmap for BPS to achieve greater equity in school-based funding and better serve students who are the most marginalized in the system currently.
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