{"id":28847,"date":"2017-12-01T09:34:27","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T15:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=28847"},"modified":"2017-12-01T11:57:52","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T17:57:52","slug":"governor-pushes-for-consolidation-but-school-leaders-say-administration-isnt-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2017\/12\/01\/governor-pushes-for-consolidation-but-school-leaders-say-administration-isnt-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor Pushes For Consolidation, But School Leaders Say \u2018Administration\u2019 Isn\u2019t Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_28848\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28848\" alt=\"Robert Romines is the Superintendent of Moore Public Schools. He says many administrators are very involved with classroom instruction on a day-to-day basis. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/12\/20171129-RobertRomines_WEB.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/12\/20171129-RobertRomines_WEB.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/12\/20171129-RobertRomines_WEB-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/12\/20171129-RobertRomines_WEB-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/12\/20171129-RobertRomines_WEB-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Emily Wendler \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Robert Romines is the Superintendent of Moore Public Schools. He says many administrators are very involved with classroom instruction on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Education leaders in Oklahoma say Gov. Mary Fallin\u2019s executive order on school consolidation oversimplified a very complicated issue.<\/p><p>The November 21 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sos.ok.gov\/documents\/executive\/1785.pdf\">order<\/a> directs school districts that don\u2019t spend at least 60 percent of their budget on instruction to consolidate administrative staff with other districts. A strict interpretation of this rule would force most Oklahoma school districts to cut an administrator, or a support staff person, and then find a way to split that cost with a neighboring district.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/363214913&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>Fallin\u2019s executive order says any freed up funding should go to classroom instruction.<\/p><p>Moore Public Schools Superintendent Robert Romines says most education spending at local districts is tied to classroom instruction, even if it doesn\u2019t look that way in a school\u2019s budget.<\/p><p>\u201cWhen people hear administrative costs they think of people like myself,\u201d he says.<\/p><p>But many school employees classified as administrators often spend a majority of their day working with students, Romines says. Teacher\u2019s assistants, for example, can be considered administrative in a school\u2019s budget documents, even though they work in classrooms alongside teachers.<\/p><p>\u201cSchool nurses, that\u2019s another that falls under the administrative cap,\u201d he said. \u201cCounselors, elementary and secondary counselors. Media specialists is another one.\u201d<\/p><p>Romines says the way employees are classified skews the picture of classroom and administrative spending. And he and other local school officials say it\u2019s an inaccurate way of determining whether or not a position is necessary.<\/p><p>\u201cWithout those paraprofessionals, without those counselors, without those media specialists, talk about some serious loss of classroom instruction,\u201d he says. \u201cThat is all related to classroom instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Too Many Districts?<\/h3><p>Fallin declined StateImpact\u2019s request for an interview. We asked her office to clarify how it categorizes instruction and administration spending. Michael McNutt, a spokesperson, said the definitions are to-be-determined.<\/p><p>McNutt said the Governor wants to encourage districts to cut overhead and avoid duplicating services. The objective, he says, is to free up money for a teacher pay raise.<\/p><p>Shawn Hime, executive director for the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, says districts already share services to save money \u2014 and have done so for years. Also, he says years of budget cuts from lawmakers mean most schools have already eliminated every nonessential role.<\/p><p>\u201cDo you really think there are inefficiencies in the schools?\u201d he asked. \u201cThey\u2019re having to lay-off teachers, other staff members, cutting anything they can.\u201d<\/p><p>Hime says Fallin\u2019s executive order is a political statement, a show for conservative lawmakers who refuse to raise taxes until more government inefficiencies are eliminated. A few legislators have said they won\u2019t increase funding for education until some of Oklahoma\u2019s 500-plus school districts are consolidated.<\/p><p>\u201cAt the end of the day they forget we have superintendents in Oklahoma making what principals make,\u201d he says.<\/p><p>Oklahoma does have a large number of districts, but Hime says administrative costs are ultimately low because so many Superintendents of small districts often work double-duty as principals and teachers, and, sometimes, maintenance workers.<\/p><p>Data appear to support this. StateImpact analyzed the U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.census.gov\/govs\/school\/14f33pub.pdf\">Public Education Finances<\/a> report and numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics and found that, when factoring for the costs of principals and other support staff, Oklahoma&#8217;s total administrative spending is lower than every comparable state except Utah\u2019s.<\/p><p>Hime says if politicians want to consolidate Oklahoma\u2019s school districts or administrative services, they shouldn\u2019t base their decisions off overly simplified budget documents or school district counts.<\/p><p>\u201cIf they want to have a realistic conversation about consolidation around academic achievement and educational opportunity \u2014 that\u2019s what we should do.\u201d<\/p><p>Furthermore, he says, giving teachers a raise is the easiest way to boost the amount of money schools spend on instruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Education leaders in Oklahoma say Gov. Mary Fallin\u2019s executive order on school consolidation oversimplified a very complicated issue.The November 21 order directs school districts that don\u2019t spend at least 60 percent of their budget on instruction to consolidate administrative staff with other districts. A strict interpretation of this rule would force most Oklahoma school districts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":28848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[855,721,53,740],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28847"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28892,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847\/revisions\/28892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}