I am a big fan of planning. There exists a group of people that spend money like there is no end and that they will always have money. The other piece is that people often look at the new shiny toy and feel the need to have it. An example happened a couple of years ago I had an administrator ask why we didn’t have a bunch of 3D printers for our building. I told her simply that we were getting to the point where we needed them for our curriculum. It seemed silly to have equipment just because other people had them. It makes sense to buy them when we have a need and not just respond to a fad. This brings me to the technology renewal money we had in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The bond election provided money to renew technology in a building and keep things updated. We would spend hours preparing the report. The document had 10+ sections that covered everything from staff use to student use. It covered labs, media centers, and classrooms. It was a complete evaluation and a plan that covered several years. It was this preparation that allowed for a very successful use of taxpayer money. In the last few years, people became offended if they were asked how they were spending the money for the building. The other problem that arose was that money was often at the whim of any new principal and could change as a new principal came in. There became disjointed plans and often, no plans at all. It seemed like a burden at the time but it was something that we could tell taxpayers and look them in the eye. A return to a simple plan for money before spending on new toys without a plan would help schools become more fiscally sound.
