superintendent of the year nominations

solutions exist to address budget challenges. During the last two biennium budget periods we have worked closely with the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA), the Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO) and The Alliance for High Quality Education to advocate for policy that supports public schools. Our district became particularly immersed with BASA, the Alliance for High Quality Education, our Ohio Representative and Senator last biennium to propose a cap solution to the Governor’s proposed budget cuts that more equitably addressed the budget shortfall. While significant cuts were still made, our district went from an originally proposed cut of 76% in state funding to an amount less than 25%. I have advocated at the national level through participation in professional surveys and involvement in AASA, but admittedly the bulk of my time has been spent on keeping our district focused and participating heavily at the local and state levels. We work to provide excellent schools at an exceptional value. To do this it is imperative that all in Westlake understand and support our mission. Taking action in response to things like budget cuts doesn’t start when the cuts happen. Action actually begins by involving the community in the development of our Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) which defines our purpose, values, beliefs, mission and vision. When considering action to respond to resource challenges, the critical decisions necessary must align with the purpose of the school district and the values of the community. We have found that because of our CIP process community stakeholders are more personally connected with decisions of the district due to their high involvement in the development of district goals and priorities. Last biennium we made approximately $4.2 million in reductions over a two year period to account for state budget cuts. During that time we also managed to add world language at the elementary school level and pre-engineering classes at the middle school level. Additionally, all four elementary buildings began the process of earning accreditation as International Baccalaureate (IB) World Schools. To accomplish these things at a time of declining revenue we visited our budget challenges along with our CIP commitments publically at Board meetings and special meetings and developed a plan to make cuts and provide outside revenue to best stay on course with our mission during these troubled times. Changes in class sizes, combining sections of level 5 and AP classes and elimination of electives considered less of a priority are examples of some of the collective sacrifices agreed to in order to help. Clearly, adjustments of that magnitude could not have been made without understanding our priorities through community involvement and thinking innovatively. Through the process of working publically to address our challenges, opportunities emerged and we were able to better utilize all of our community resources in the form of significant partnerships, grants, consortiums, shared services, advertising, and the use of community volunteers. Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma at Westlake High School. Our CIP identified the need for our students to be Internationally Competitive, Capable, Engaged and Experienced as a priority, so it determined the importance that we continue to work to make this happen despite major budget reductions. Several non- traditional measures were taken to accomplish this goal that we consider innovative. After learning of the cuts at the state level and realizing we would not have the funds to continue our pursuit as planned, we called a meeting with a number of other school districts who expressed similar interests in pursuing the IB Diploma Programme. From that meeting three other districts agreed to partner with us to form a consortium so that students from all four high schools could earn the IB diploma. This partnership allowed the cost to be divided evenly between the four districts. We then sought assistance from Perhaps our best example of a successful innovative action in response to budget cuts has been our effort to continue moving forward to provide our students an opportunity to earn an International

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