Goal Driven Budget

The purpose of a goal driven budget is to assist in the attainment of a shared vision for the school district and every campus. Every district and campus has a goal driven budget in the sense that they all want to have the best quality teachers possible with the best resources that they can provide them to get the work done.  Dr. Arterbery discusses the fact that " we would like to encourage you to think about the budgeting process as part of the total planning process of the school district."  In addition to a single goal focus, which our district has, we have 4 sub goals that help us to stay focused on what we can do to help all students be successful.

     For Spring Branch, we have one single goal.  The goal is to double the number of student who complete a two year, four year, or technical certification by the year of 2017.  All of our finances, resources, and teachers should be pushing towards that goal.  In addition we should see the allocation of financial resources and budgeting needs to help us to reach that goal.  Dr. Arterbery also stated in the week 2 lecture "the District Improvement Plan and the Campus Improvement Plans should reflect the goals of the Board of Trustees."  In SBISD, when writing our district improvement goals and our campus improvement goals, we use a template that helps us to focus all of our goals and projects towards the districts and boards goals.  We always write towards our T-2-4, which helps us to stay focused and grounded on our plans to support the districts vision and purpose to benefit all kids.  As stated in the lecture, " the district and campus goals should reflect the Board goals and the budgeting process should reflect a commitment to expending funds to achieve those goals."

   One example of a district goal for SBISD that you will see supports T-2-4 however will require financial backing is "all stakeholders (Administration, students, parents, all staff, community) must embrace technology as a teaching and learning tool."  This T-2-4 will require that all schools be equipped with the technology necessary to achieve this goal.  In addition,   There must be a substantial amount of money allocated to this endeavor and this is something that will be integrated over time, not funded tomorrow.  The district and schools have clearly defined what this will look like, for example: Teachers will use technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning and design, develop and model digital learning experiences and digital citizenship, however; this is not a cheap responsibility.  The goal driven budgets allows for the district to allocate the appropriate resources for the cost of such a large project in order to ensure financial success as well as appropriate budget use.