www.DistrictDollars.org

Balancing the Budget for Davis Schools

The Davis Joint Unified School District recently introduced District Dollars, a web-based, interactive program to help explain the DJUSD budget situation.  Students, parents, staff and community members are invited to participate.

Visitors can access the site 24/7 through June and have the opportunity to learn about:

• How California pays for schools
• How much money the district gets and how it is spent
• The different options for balancing the budget
• Superintendent James Hammond’s plan to close the current $5.6 million budget gap
• The timeline for budget decisions

In addition, District Dollars provides the opportunity to ask questions, provide feedback and share values about education priorities.

A Community Collaboration

District Dollars is a collaborative project of DJUSD and community volunteers.   Appreciation is expressed to:

• Mike Harty and Jay Ziegler for their assistance in grantwriting,
• Davis Campbell for obtaining a Stuart Foundation grant,
• Dan Troy and Richard Reed for their assistance in developing content,
• Katherine Heck for providing advice on the values exercise,
• Maria Mindlin of Transcend Translations for providing foreign and plain language translation services, and
• Steve McMahon of Reid-McMahon, assisted by Tsui Chang of Davis Community Network, for web design.

DJUSD Superintendent James Hammond, Associate Superintendent of Business Services Bruce Colby and Director of Technology Bob Kehr provided critical expertise and advice.

What Are Your Educational Priorities?

District Dollars is intended to make comprehensive information about the district’s budget easily available, and to extend the public process to those who might not otherwise participate.  Visitors to the site may choose to complete an exercise to identify their personal educational priorities, then view their own priorities in the context of those of others.

District staff and the Board of Education will periodically review this information throughout the budget process, though no decisions will be based solely upon results.  As any online poll or survey is open to manipulation, “What Do You Value?” functions best in provoking individual thought and group discussion of community values.

Community support is needed to further refine District Dollars, to encourage its use by the widest possible audience, and to promote community discussion about what we value in Davis schools, as well as what constitutes adequate funding for public education.

In one possible scenario, a group might receive a brief District Dollars demonstration, then take a few minutes to individually complete the values exercise (available in paper form.)  Following that, each person could share their top 2-3 values and the reasons for each, and the group would review the current collective results available online through District Dollars.  Discussion could conclude with thoughts on what was surprising or whether anyone changed their values based upon the discussion.

Your ideas on other structured discussions, or feedback on conversations in which you’ve participated, will assist in further project development.  Please share by commenting below or emailing budgetinput@djusd.k12.ca.us.

Specific budget questions are being collected and responses, if appropriate, will be provided on the district’s website as Your Budget Questions Answered. 

Translation for Broadest Participation

Google Translate is currently running on the District Dollars site, accessible from the upper right hand corner of any screen.  This mechanically generated translation can be improved by native speakers and the improvements saved for subsequent users.  If you speak a language other than English, please take a few minutes to help extend the reach of this information resource.

Open Sourcing

Developers hope to share the District Dollars model freely with other school districts, to benefit from their expertise and experience in broadening community awareness and expanding participation in decisions affecting California’s public school students.