After the oft-repeated three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) comes the lesser-known but equally important fourth R: rot. In this case, rot means compost. Classrooms, schools, and school districts can use a number of methods to establish a compost program. The finished product is a valuable soil amendment that adds fertility to local farmland, school…

Transporting students with special needs can be a costly proposition. However, school business officials can help mitigate those costs by focusing on four specific areas: relationships, information sharing, safety, and time lines. Although these areas may seem a bit far removed from the numbers we love to crunch, they do affect your…

To navigate today's fiscal challenges successfully, school districts must constantly examine the long-term fiscal implications of policy, programmatic, and human resource decisions on their organization. They must look at the effect of such items as bargaining agreements, contracted services, placement costs, transportation costs, benefits,…

The everyday operations of a school district depend on a network of people, including students, teachers, staff, and administrators. However, the ancillary services staff are really responsible for making the school day run smoothly. They are often the first employees that students see in the morning, either on the school bus or in the cafeteria,…

The New Mexico Public Schools Facilities Authority (NM-PSFA) is a relatively small state agency (50 staff members) that manages the allocation of funding for public school facilities in the state while assisting school districts and state-chartered charter schools in facility planning, construction, and maintenance. Like the majority of other…

Preparing for every possible contingency seems daunting, but with teamwork and some help from the government, it's almost do-able. There is a great system out there that will help business professionals and educators develop a strong, effective emergency preparedness plan. If they haven't done a good job of implementing a solid emergency response…

Given the current economic constraints facing the country, school districts in the U.S. have been pushed to develop annual budgets through a new lens and to accept the reality that budget adoption is a complex, political process. Whether a school district is rich or poor, growing or declining in enrollment, serving a specialized population or…