LETTER: Time to evaluate effectiveness of our school dollars

I was asked a question about the value of someone’s position at a school district, and that led me to think about the upcoming data presentation and upcoming budget conversations.

What is value and how do we measure it to the success of the student? At the end of the day, all monies spent from our taxpayers for public school education should enhance student outcomes.

Whose outcome are we attempting to make better — the whole student base or a small subset?

Recently, I have wondered how to measure the relationship between the “Future Ready PA Index,” “Test Scores” and more against the total budget combined with data on student enrollment and the addition of staff.

Frankly, we should come to expect that the more money we put into the system, the better our students are going to be — but is this true?

Some school districts (e.g., Elizabethtown) have openly spoken about cutting programs such as sports, music and clubs. That would save $1.2 million. I would argue that those programs are way more important to a community and a school district than the addition of the administrative state.

Culture is king, and sometimes that can lead to a “cure-all” for items that lack in a school district.

Extracurricular activities hold students to a higher standard, and I believe we need to continue to push that envelope. We should make the GPA score needed to participate in extracurricular activities higher than it currently stands.

Extracurricular activities hold students to behavior standards inside and outside of the classroom and bring our community together to cheer/support the student base. Spending money on additional programs is crucial to any district’s attempt to build a culture and an environment of strong partnership between Student-Parent-Teacher-Administration.

We have seen in recent years all over the country that money can flow easily to a district, but that does not mean improvements are being made to the life of the student or their respective future readiness.

Communication is a vital aspect of success between a community and their school base. Schools need to ensure that communication not only flows to the community but it is concise and succinct. This goes with its budget presentations along with its data presentations.

A very important undertaking over the next few years with school budgets is to study the value additions that have been made to the administrative state over the course of the Covid pandemic and ask ourselves if they made the life of the student better and/or are they prepared to do that in the future and how will it ensure our students leave the district more prepared to the future ahead of them.

Jason Eric Saylor is a member of the Perkiomen Valley School Board.