The ERS-Texas CFO Strategy Network brings together school district finance leaders from across Texas who are committed to transforming outcomes for students and maximizing the impact of their districts' resources (people, time, and money). The network aims to support CFOs by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to enable them to act as a strategic leader within their districts and provide a venue for them to meaningfully collaborate and learn together. We look forward to bringing this group together in Austin, TX. 

For participant information and materials, please log-in to your My ERS Account and navigate to this page under Events.  

Please contact Edwin Morales for more information. 

The ERS-Aspen CFO/CSO Strategy Network brings together school district finance leaders from across the nation who are committed to transforming outcomes for students and maximizing the impact of their districts' resources (people, time, and money). The network aims to support CFOs by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to enable them to act as a strategic leader within their districts and provide a venue for them to meaningfully collaborate and learn together. We look forward to bringing this group together in Portland, OR

For participant information and materials, please log-in to your My ERS Account and navigate to this page under Events.  

Please contact Edwin Morales for more information.

The ERS-California CFO/CBO Strategy Network brings together school district finance leaders from across the nation who are committed to transforming outcomes for students and maximizing the impact of their districts' resources (people, time, and money). The network aims to support CFOs/CBOs by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to enable them to act as a strategic leader within their districts and provide a venue for them to meaningfully collaborate and learn together. We look forward to bringing this group together in Monterey, CA

For participant information and materials, please log-in to your My ERS Account and navigate to this page under Events. 

Please contact Edwin Morales for more information.

The ERS-Consortium CFO Strategy Network brings together school district finance leaders from across the nation who are committed to transforming outcomes for students and maximizing the impact of their districts' resources (people, time, and money). The network aims to support CFOs by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to enable them to act as a strategic leader within their districts and provide a venue for them to meaningfully collaborate and learn together. We look forward to bringing this group together in Mesa, AZ.

For participant information and materials, please log-in to your My ERS Account and navigate to this page under Events.

Please contact Edwin Morales for more information.

ERS will host a virtual event focused on school portfolio redesign. The event will discuss how to lead a successful school portfolio redesign, including guest speakers who have led successful redesign efforts and will share important lessons they learned along the way.

Please contact Edwin Morales for more information. 

Please join the Alliance for Resource Equity for the third session in our (virtual) learning series on the most critical resource equity actions that districts can take to direct resources where they are needed most as we plan for acceleration and innovation for the upcoming school year. This session will feature Dr. Mary Rice-Boothe (Chief Access & Equity Officer, The Leadership Academy) in conversation with Gilmara Mitchell (Equity Coordinator, Des Moines Public Schools) and Peter LeBlanc (Principal on Special Assignment, Office of Talent Support, Des Moines Public Schools) discussing how to support school leaders and develop their capacity so that they are set up for success during this moment of transformation.

Please contact Betty Chang for more information.

Please join the Alliance for Resource Equity for the third session in our (virtual) learning series on the most critical resource equity actions that districts can take to direct resources where they are needed most during this COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.In this session we’ll talk with Dr. Patricia Payne (Director, Racial Equity Office, Indianapolis Public Schools) and Alex Moseman (Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition, Indianapolis Public Schools) about how the district's shared mission and language around racial equity - developed from Dr. Payne's decades of experience leading IPS's equity work - is being integrated into the district's approach to hiring and supporting teachers led by Alex Moseman.

Please contact Betty Chang for more information.

What Is It?

Education Resource Strategies’ Strategic Budget Partner Retreat is an invitation-only retreat that helps CFO Network members’ finance/budget teams reimagine their role in supporting school leaders to use resources most effectively. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and looming economic recession, this skillset is ever more critical.

Retreat Structure

The retreat is in its fifth year — and for the first time, we are offering it remotely. Content will be a mix of cross-district collaboration time and “flipped-classroom” style sessions that will include videos, individual reflection, and team discussions. Interested districts should select to join one of the two weeks in which it will be offered, as we'll have two attendance options available: October 26-30 and November 16-20. Both will take place a few hours each day, with some flipped-classroom work time included.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, economic recession, and renewed national recognition of systemic racism have underscored the inequities that students of color and students with higher needs face in our society and in our schools. District equity leaders (whether the title is Chief Equity Officer, Director of Equity, or something else) play a key role in confronting and overcoming these challenges, particularly when it comes to helping districts direct limited resources where they’re needed most, both this school year and beyond. The Alliance for Resource Equity is hosting a virtual convening of district equity leaders to unpack the challenges of this moment, share promising practices, and brainstorm solutions. 

Learn more and register here.

In this session, we will discuss the economics of key decisions like remote staffing ratios, hybrid models, and redesigning instructional staff roles to explore how systems can most cost-effectively prioritize in-person instruction for the highest need students, within existing resource constraints and community context. 

The Aspen Superintendent network helps superintendents develop the skills necessary to be a strong strategic partner to their CFOs, CAOs, or Strategy Officers. Karen Hawley Miles has been an advisor to this group for 10 years running. 

The 2019 Strategic Budget Partner Retreat is scheduled for October 23-25, 2019 in Boston, MA

This three-day retreat provides finance teams and district staff with the knowledge, skills, and mindset to support strategic resource allocation in schools and across the district.  At the retreat, participants are introduced to and explore the tools, processes, data, and knowledge that budget staff need to support school leaders.  We also explore how finance teams can best support Strategic School Design. Participating districts will collaborate through shared problems of practice and reflect within their own district teams about how to continuously improve the services they provide to schools.

The SBB Summit is scheduled for July 19-20, 2018 in Boston, MA

This two-day conference brings together district leaders who have implemented Student-Based Budgeting (also known as Fair Student Funding and Weighted Student Funding) with the goal of optimizing the equity, transparency, and flexibility of their school funding systems, and empowering their school leaders to develop more strategic school designs. Summit workshops will include: sharing best practices and lessons learned with peers across the country, deep dives into ongoing challenges with other practitioners, and the testing of new tools and resources.

Click here for more details and to get in touch if you'd like to send a team.

The next School Design Summit is scheduled for the summer of 2019.

This three-day training brings together cross-functional teams of school and district leaders to work toward a set of key actions necessary in their district to scale strategic school design to ensure that every school succeeds for every student. The workshop includes case-studies with other practitioners, testing new tools and resources, sharing practices with peers from around the country, and hands-on teamwork facilitated by ERS experts on visioning and planning. Access tools and resources from the 2017 Summit here.

Please contact us if your district would like to send a team.

In this session on Budget Tradeoffs and Planning with Education Resource Strategies, fellows will engage in ERS’ ESSER Budget Hold ’Em exercise to explore paths to realizing a sustainable “build toward” vision for their systems. Working in groups, fellows will discuss the logic behind their near-term and long-term budget decisions, the tradeoffs they could make to achieve catalytic changes in student and teacher experiences and the specific learnings and actions that they can apply as they launch their system’s FY23 budget process this winter.

Karen Hawley Miles is presenting to a PIE Network panel on how we might reimagine the teacher role

Please see GFOA's event website here for registration information.

School districts are planning for fiscal year 2022 facing a wide range of significant uncertainties – none of which are likely to go away in the short term or be easily remedied. Revenue projections continue to fluctuate, enrollment forecasts face added challenges from remote learning, and costs associated to COVID mitigations will continue. In addition, districts will be working to support students who begin the 2021-22 school year with greater needs than ever before.

Addressing these challenges will take significant thought and work to develop a transformed vision. As part of these discussions districts will need to rethink past spending patterns to free up resources and balance budgets and to make foundational investments to support students. To address these challenges, finance officers and district leaders should revise their budgeting and planning processes for fiscal year 2022 and beyond, to be more flexible, data-driven, and grounded in new needs.

How can States support the post-COVID transformation of schools and districts to accelerate student learning to respond to increased student need with limited revenue?

Find out here

ERS will lead a discussion on the finance / budget impacts of key decisions that your school systems are about to make on reopening this fall.

As systems design comeback models for SY2021, they face an unprecedented challenge of designing service delivery that responds to student need equitably, protects physical health of students and staff and is financially viable. We will be discussing the economics of key decisions like remote staffing ratios, hybrid models, and redesigning instructional staff roles to explore how systems can most cost-effectively prioritize in-person instruction for the highest need students, within existing resource constraints and community context.

ERS is joining the pre-conference to engage GFOA’s members in a discussion on what it takes for strategic CFOs to align resources to strategies. This session is grounded in ERS’ Strategic CFO Guide. 

EdFinChat hosts monthly Twitter conversations about education finance, operations, and tech. ERS will co-host the May session on our recent publication, The Strategic CFO.

The 2019 Student Opportunity Act creates a once-in-a-generation moment for Massachusetts students: the Commonwealth has committed $1.5 billion dollars over seven years to make good on the promise that best-in-the-nation education can be a reality for all Massachusetts children, especially English learners and students from low-income families. Join ERS on March 16 for a free webinar on using new funding strategically and get expert assistance in designing and troubleshooting SOA plans.

Karen Hawley Miles will be presenting at the NCSL conference on June 27. Don't miss her session on State Budget and Tax Academy, K-12 Education Finance. 

Hosted by the NewSchools Venture Fund, the NewSchools Summit is an annual invitation-only gathering for education leaders who bring important and diverse perspectives in PreK-12 education innovation. The Summit will be held in Oakland, CA and will bring together over 1,300 educators, entrepreneurs, community leaders, funders, and policy makers. More information can be found at https://www.newschools.org/about-us/summit/summit-2019. 

Joe McKown will be presenting at a round robin session at the AASA 2019 National Conference on Education. Will we see you there?

ERS Partner Jonathan Travers will be presenting with the Council of Great City Schools in Baltimore, MD

Karen Hawley Miles will be presenting at the National Association of State Boards of Education 60th Anniversary conference in Denver, CO on Advancing Resource Equity

ERS is facilitating a game of District Budget Hold'em at the Leadership Florida conference

ERS is facilitating a game of District Budget Hold'em at the Grantmakers for Education conference in San Diego, CA

Register here

For districts that are committed to using ESSER funds to meet immediate needs and, at the same time, redesign toward a more student-centered, equity-focused and future-driven approach, this session will focus on concrete ways districts can better leverage their FY23 budget development process.

Over the last month, Education Resource Strategies (ERS) has engaged CFOs from ~40 districts nationwide on this idea of using the FY23 budget development process to optimize ESER impact. In this webinar, ERS will share six recommended adaptations identified through this process and will provide examples/illustrations from a variety of districts to show the specific changes leading districts are making this year. Session content is grounded in the Guiding Principles of AASA’s Learning Recovery and Redesign Guidance — Plant Seeds, Center Equity, Use & Build Knowledge, and Sustain Strategically – and seeks to provide district leaders with levers to take action on them through the annual budgeting process.

Presenters:
Jonathan Travers, Managing Partner, Education Resource Strategies
Katie Roy, Senior Advisor, Education Resource Strategies

ERS will be presenting to NYASBO (New York Association of Business Officers) and facilitating an online worksession around our Budget Hold'em for Districts tool. 

The webinar will be held from 9:30-10:30am EST / 12:30-1:30pm PST on Tuesday, August 28, 2018. 

The standard budgeting process for many districts is to review last year's budget and make incremental changes. Strategic CFOs know that to make transformational change, the budget process needs to evolve and be integrated into the district's strategic development and review. During this webinar, CFOs will be introduced to a tool to help them reflect on how strategic their budget development processes currently is, and begin to brainstorm ways to improve it.

Although applicable for all districts, there will be a specific focus on the California context.

This webinar will be hosted by the PIE Network on April 30, 2018

State-level advocates play an important role in implementing the ESSA public reporting requirement on school-level financial information. By asking the right questions and working with districts and departments, advocates can ensure the data illuminates equity gaps and improves policy-making.
 
Experts Ary Amerikaner from Education Trust and Jonathan Travers from ERS will present on opportunities and challenges of the fiscal transparency requirement. Then, we’ll turn to partners and state advocates for a discussion on their experiences with this issue.