Burbio School Tracker 11/21: The Difference a Year Makes

1. Burbio's School Board Meeting Tracker covers school board meetings for over 2,000 school districts each month, representing over 60% of the K-12 school population. This week we look at the frequency of school board mentions in meetings for the Fall of 2024 versus the Fall of 2023. Below are examples of categories where mentions have increased. The percentages in each chart refer to districts that mentioned the measured terms at least once in the period:

2. The most important individual in setting district policy is the district Superintendent, and Burbio's Superintendent Turnover Tracker measures changes in that role nationwide and provides alerts when openings occur. Tracking includes:

• Identification of change in district leadership immediately upon the resignation or termination of the previous Superintendent
• Documentation of status of searches, interim leadership (if applicable), start dates of new Superintendents, and monitoring where the new Superintendent used to work and what district the outgoing Superintendent left to lead (if any)

Below we track the reason for superintendent turnover broken out by district size over the last 12 months. We classify small districts as those with 3,000 students or less, medium districts having between 3,000 and 10,000 students, and large districts as those with greater than 10,000 students. Superintendents in medium sized districts are more likely to leave due to retirement compared to superintendents at large or small districts. Small districts are more likely to see Superintendents leave for another job in education, and large districts more frequently see turnover due to resignation/termination.

3. Burbio's State-Level Funding Tracker features continuously updated, state-specific grants for PreK-12 schools. Burbio has identified over 1,400 grants covering over $30 billion in spending. The data is updated daily and covers grant category, application deadlines, district eligibility, and funding start and end dates. Clients can receive alerts any time a new grant is announced anywhere in the country. 

One of the more common - and broader - categories is Afterschool and Summer School grants that cover an array of services and this week we profile them. 

Grants in this category tend to fall into broad buckets, although they can overlap: 

• Those targeting at-risk or underserved communities 
• Programs providing enrichment for students 
• Grants targeted more generally to extended day learning
• Programs providing an extension of school services more broadly, e.g. meal service or general academic programs

We recommend clients in all academic areas review grants in this category as their services are often involved in the grants' program delivery. Some examples:

• In Arizona, the ADE State Tutoring fund program is available to all pupils attending a school assigned a letter grade of D or F.
• In South Carolina, the Summer Reading Camp (SRC) Community Partnership Grant (CPG)  is targeted to "provide students who are significantly below grade-level reading proficiency with the opportunity to receive quality intensive instructional services and support."  
• In Maryland the Arts in Education grant is designed to strengthen lifelong learning in the arts. 
• The West Virginia Science, Technology and Research Opportunity Grants are open to K-12 districts as well as higher ed and community organizations. 
• In Alabama the Summer and After-School Program Grant must be used to accelerate student learning in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) and/or reading."