Essential Action 4
Central Office

Create lasting structures to sustain new policies and practices.

Ensure Lasting Impact

To maintain the long-term sustainability of the SGS Strategy, district leaders establish an Office of Innovation; give campus leaders an opportunity to apply for autonomy over staff, calendars, and budgets; and allot discretionary revenue to campus leaders based on student attendance.

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Key Practice 4.1
Central Office Structure

  • The district’s Central Office Organizational Chart includes an Office of Innovation with sufficient capacity to implement high-quality authorizing practices.
  • The district’s cabinet-level Chief Innovation Officer reports to the Superintendent, oversees the Office of Innovation, and has the capacity to implement high-quality authorizing practices.
  • The Office of Innovation actively participates in the TEA-sponsored Professional Learning Opportunities.
     

Key Practice 4.2
School Autonomy Practices

  • SGS Districts believe that schools are the unit of change, so they create systems to ensure the right decisions can be made at the school level. They develop School Autonomies that are guaranteed to district-run and partner-managed campuses and use quality authorizing processes to grant additional autonomies to certain campuses.
  • The School Autonomy Practices include school leader autonomy over at least staffing (i.e. recruiting, hiring, firing), length of the school day and year, and budget.
     

Key Practice 4.3
Student-based Budgeting

  • The district is implementing a Student-Based Budgeting (SBB) model which:
    • is based upon student attendance and student needs;
    • allows the district to allot operating revenue to campuses, rather than allotting staff, services, or materials; and
    • is implemented at all district-run and partner-managed campuses.
  • The district is implementing a District Menu of Services which:
    • lists fees for optional services;
    • gives district-run and partner-managed campuses autonomy over how they choose to expend operating budgets; and
    • allows campuses to access service options beyond the district.
  • The district is implementing an Excel-based SBB Template to transparently outline resources available for allocation to district-run and partner-managed campuses.

Tools & Resources

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Beaumont ISD

To ensure that System of Great Schools strategies endure beyond the tenure of individual leaders, BISD established an Office of Innovation led by a CIO who reports directly to the Superintendent. The CIO built capacity in quality authorizing practices through participation in the Texas Authorizer Leadership Academy. In addition, district leaders established policies to codify school autonomy and thereby help campus leaders rapidly innovate and turn around schools. BISD’s Innovation, Finance, and Human Resource offices are also working to implement Student-Based Budgeting, which allocates operating revenue to campus leaders, rather than allocating staff, services, or materials.

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