Giving Compass' Take:

• Administrators explain how their districts and schools are coping with financial difficulties due to limited funding for essential programs. 

• How can funders help schools get more for their money? What are sustainable funding solutions for schools and programs that are chronically underfunded? 

• Learn how much it would cost states to get all students up to average. 

Education Dive asked five school and district leaders to share some of the greatest financial concerns they regularly deal with and how they work around them.

Glenn Robbins - Superintendent, Tabernacle School District (N.J.)
For the second consecutive year, our district has received less funding from the state, and will lose a total of roughly $2.5 million in the next several years. Being a smaller district, it certainly put a strain on our plans, especially when the state provided us a short window of time to cut the budgets during the summer. However, I often reflect on a quote I heard years ago: If you want to see what an organization's true plans are, tighten their budget.

First and foremost, we were able to save current jobs without laying off staff. We also had several construction projects — new boilers in one building, new cement walkways, and updating our wastewater management plant — completed this summer that were part of our long-term plans. We (an IT team of two people, and myself) personally installed new security cameras in all schools, saving the district over $65,000 in labor fees. We purchased new Chromebooks and carts for our elementary students, and, once again, constructed the carts ourselves.

Our team will also be installing new security measures with an electronic check-in system that searches national databanks to ensure full safety of our students and staff. We installed a new Zen Den to continue our focus on SEL for not only students but all staff as well.

We made a substantial move to increase our staff's professional development through the creation of new curriculum cohorts that will meet monthly over the year, as well as creating a free national conference called Rewire, where we will open our doors to all surrounding districts and states to receive some of the best PD in the country. We also are hosting a state ELA conference for two days at our district, which will allow our staff to attend for free.

Lastly, a group of our staff members were recently awarded a $27,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to host a PD conference in the spring. The best part about all of this PD is that we are recording the sessions and building a video database for our staff to use for years to come to fine-tune their craft.

Read the full article about coping with budget cuts by Jessica Campisi and Roger Riddell at Education Dive.