Our Budget is Our Vision: An Analysis of the Clarity and Transparency of the Budgetary Process in San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Objective: In this study, I investigated the clarity and transparency of the school budgetary process in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). SFUSD practices school site based budgeting through the involvement of “school site councils” in the budgetary process, comprised of school administrators, teachers, and parents. Method: I surveyed 44 school site council members (Administrators, Parents, Teachers, Staff, and Volunteers) across elementary schools in SFUSD. Participants answered questions regarding their understanding of budgets, the SFUSD budget guide, and the budget-making process. Additionally, I conducted a textual analysis of the school budget documents, assessing their clarity of formatting and content. Results: The participant’s results showed that almost all participants felt they were a “valuable” part of the budgetary process. However, parents and teachers in particular reported lower awareness of available resources in SFUSD, lower general knowledge of the funding process, and lower technical skills. Most parents and teachers did not know about the SFUSD budget guide and indicated they had questions regarding budget-writing (acronyms, funding categories, formatting, etc.). The budgets themselves were unclear without exposure to the SFUSD budget guide. Conclusions: Parents and teachers are invested in the budgetary process and can be more impactful if given additional training, especially around the general funding process and technical skills. In order to make sure training is effective, SFUSD would benefit from stronger, more direct communication between the district and school site council members (eg. parents and teachers). Streamlined communication can improve the clarity and transparency with regards to (1) financial literacy (2) existing guides and workshops and (3) budget details.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | [ca. September 2014 - May 2015] |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Saadati-Soto, Donna |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Hakuta, Kenji |
| Advisor | Willinsky, John |
| Advisor | Moorhead, Laura |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education |
Subjects
| Subject | School Site Budgeting |
|---|---|
| Subject | School Site Council |
| Subject | Participatory Budgeting |
| Subject | Budgetary Process |
| Subject | Community Engagement |
| Subject | Budget Clarity |
| Subject | Budget Transparency |
| Subject | Stanford University |
| Subject | Graduate School of Education |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
| Related item |
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|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/dz775kb2169 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Saadati-Soto, Donna. (2015). Our Budget is Our Vision: An Analysis of the Clarity and Transparency of the Budgetary Process in San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Unpublished Honors Thesis. Stanford University, Stanford CA.
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
- Contact
- donna.saadatisoto@gmail.com
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