Whether you’re responsible for school budget allocation at a site-based level or you work in a wider finance team across a whole school district, things are tough: from all the changes that happened over the pandemic to recent economic shifts, now you’re tasked with doing more with less.
And as the new school year rolls around, that means the pressure is mounting to be sure every educator has access to the support they need to help learners succeed. A huge part of this is making sure the school budget is managed in a way that supports skill growth and reflects the changing needs of teachers post-pandemic, while giving educators the autonomy to take control of their classroom needs in a meaningful way. How can we hack the system to head into the new school year with the budget you need to succeed?
Here are five things to remember during those first few weeks back in the office after summer vacation, from new tech and available opportunities to taking care of your mental health. Let’s check them out!
#1: Assistive technology demand is about to skyrocket, and you need to be ready.
If you’ve worked with a school budget for more than a few moments, you already know the huge pressure that arises every year around assistive technology and SLD support. It’s certainly not the only demand on your resources—but it’s likely to be the one you’ve seen grow the most rapidly. And if you’re not careful, finances get down to the wire very quickly, meaning that educators often have to do more with less. And when the tools they need are things that unlock basic access to education such as reading support, the stakes are very high: although the pressure is going to come in from all sides this semester, supporting learners into literacy has to come first… but these are facts you already know.
What’s going to make the next ten years in the game different from the previous ten is the increase in the amount of learners who need those reading support tools. $122 billion in pandemic learning support funding is drying up by this September, but more and more learners and parents are getting more on the ball about neurodiversities and recognizing things like dyslexia—and that means the number of students requesting support is going to increase along the same axis, whilst funding very likely will not. Add to that the amount of learners coming through the school system whose literacy journey was compromised by the pandemic, and you’ve got a recipe for a troubled classroom whose learning progress is impeded. Now more than ever, educators and school budget controllers have to be smart with the reading support they choose, and seek out support that puts proven results within reach for all… for less.
#2: School budget can be supplemented with charitable funding and grants.
If you’re worried about the amount of assistive tech funding you’re looking at over the next nine months, you’re not alone. Schools and districts across the US are facing what some are describing as a resourcing crisis, where needs and available capital just don’t measure up. That means looking at alternative sources of funding, especially around resourcing assistive technology and reading support on a class-wide scale.
This is where charitable funding and grants come in: when educators ask about more support or need outweighing provision, you can direct them to external sources of reading and learning support. You might want to try…
💸 Adopt a Classroom, a non-profit organization that provides funding for school supplies to public, private and charter education providers in the PreK-12 bracket. Donated funds are immediately available for use, and it’s 100% free for teachers: no fees are taken by Adopt a Classroom from the donations that they receive.
💸 Colibri Grants Inc is a charitable organization committed to grant-making in the fields of art and education. For over 10 years, they’ve been supplying grant funding to enable classroom projects across the US, predominantly in public schools.
💸 DonorsChoose is a platform that allows corporations and people to help classrooms and teachers by funding a wishlist that they create. It’s as simple as adding your chosen devices and services to your DonorsChoose list.
💸 The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is a charitable organization funded from the profits of Dollar General—yes, that Dollar General. To access charitable funding via the Dollar General Literacy Foundation’s Youth Literacy Grants system, your institutional premises have to be within 15 miles of a Dollar General Store. This is a great option for schools that are trying to fund their literacy improvement strategy, including buying reading supports like those by C-Pen.
#3: A digital wallet might help you organize, administrate and automate.
There are only so many hours in the day. That’s why finance teams are looking for a way to automate some of their processes, to free up administration time for the things that really matter. And that’s where digital wallet systems like ClassWallet come in.
In the old days, teachers or resourcers would use a purchase card or a reimbursement system to buy what they needed in order to support the learners in their classroom. It usually relied on quite a complex system of approvals, and people checking their emails far more often than a busy school day allows. But when a digital wallet is implemented, finance teams have a far faster and more efficient way of handling payments and digitizing receipts for better time management and accountability. It’s a simple enough idea: approved administrators (that’s you, on the finance team) create a pre-approved list of purchases, distribute funds to schools or individual departments, and then educators can purchase via ClassWallet’s marketplace of approved vendors (and that’s us, at Scanning Pens). Most digital wallet systems also support school budget management with real-time spending data, so that administrators can ensure that there are no early shortfalls in the pipeline, and no funds just sitting, waiting to be used up at the end of the school year.
💡 Classwallet also supports users in managing their remaining EANS funding with confidence.If you’ve still got EANS II funding to hand and you’re in one of the relevant states, then this year, it’s a case of use it or lose it too: you’ll have to use it by the 30th of September 2024 to avoid losing access to these critical resources. So it’s a great time to re-invest that in learner futures by bolstering your assistive technology pool, taking advantage of bulk reading tech deals, and ensuring that more learners have access to reading than ever before.
#4: Digital wallet systems like ClassWallet aren’t just an administrative bonus...
…they allow teachers to be timelier. Teachers don’t have much time to spare, what with the planning, marking, and day-to-day business of teaching. Another thing they lack is the ability to see into the future: quite often, students will come to them with previously undisclosed needs, or lesson plans have to change last minute to keep them engaging, fun, and accessible for all. But when purchase approval takes a number of weeks, that stymies teachers’ ability to be responsive to student needs and changes.
But when a school or district finance team uses a school budget management system like ClassWallet, funds are pre-assigned to teachers or departments, with a list of pre-approved uses and vendors to spend them on. So last-minute resourcing really can be last-minute when all the planning is already done, and all there is left for teachers to do is add to basket, and if they need something for a lesson next week, then they’ll be able to get hold of it in time. That means no complaints about the release of funds, no conflicting timelines, and less pressure on you guys over there in the finance team.
The ability to purchase free from a complicated approval system also helps educators to take control of their lesson-building and removes what many describe as a feeling of ‘fighting against the red tape’ for resources. And when we simplify the process for educators, it leaves them feeling more empowered, with more freedom to be their creative selves.
#5: Handling a school budget is high-pressure, and you’re only human.
Hey, we know that school and district finance teams are some of the most unsung heroes in education, whether you’re working at a site-based or at a district level. Along with the people who keep all the tech and facilities ticking over, the people who ensure everyone gets fed, and the people who do all the planning and resource allocation, it feels like nobody ever really notices you until something goes wrong. But you’re a vital part of the school ecosystem, and especially in recent years, it might feel like the pressure to make your school budget go ever-further is getting kind of intense. And that puts the pressure on you.
Which is why the final entry on our list is a reminder for finance teams to take care of their stress levels and their mental health as best they can. We talk a lot about educator mental health, but so rarely about the pressures on those people who work in education in a ‘back of house’ role. But we should: there isn’t a single job in a school that’s stress-free, and those handling school budget are often tasked with what seems like the impossible, especially in light of the recent cost of living crisis and more and more Covid-era funding pools drying up as time ticks on.
Take a deep breath, and take a moment when you need to. It’ll all still be there after you’ve had a strong coffee and a break.
It’s time to act.
We’re at a point of reading crisis in the US. Literacy progress has been compromised by the pandemic in so many demographics, and recent analysis from the testing group NWEA indicates that although educators are effecting a huge recovery effort, the situation may not be recovering as quickly as we had hoped. Growth during the school year 2023 – 2024 fell short of pre-pandemic trends in nearly all grades, and the gap between pre-Covid and Covid test score averages widened in nearly all grades.
The average widening in reading scores between the two points was 36%. And the average student needs the equivalent of 4.8 additional months of schooling in order to catch up in reading—that’s just over half a school year.
This fall, teachers across the nation will be walking into a classroom divided—on the axis of those who can read at grade level and those who can’t. Students from materially disadvantaged backgrounds, those with SLDs and English Language Learners (ELLs) make up a significant portion of those who are set to struggle, but not all. There are now so many more learners who haven’t been able to make up for the reading loss that happened during the remote education period.
Support for a classroom divided: make C-Pen your best new investment this semester!
So there are more students who need reading support than ever before if they’re going to be able to succeed, and the requests for funding for that are about to start hitting your inbox. Welcome to the start of the semester.
But at Scanning Pens, we understand how far school budget has to go, and we know that it’s never as easy as it should be to resource reading support solutions that are adaptable and customizable enough to work for every learner in the classroom. That’s why finance teams across the US recommend Scanning Pens’ award-winning C-Pen Reader 2 to teachers looking for ways to bolster reading ability, support learners toward independence and confidence, and make the most of their finances.
✅ Customizable reading speed, accent, and word pause options
✅ Tried and tested text-to-speech functionality
✅ Saves teacher time, bandwidth and money
✅ Available via ClassWallet as an approved vendor
✅ A way to invest short-deadline EANS funding in the future
✅ Available via Dollar General’s Youth Literacy Grants
✅ Available in a cost-saving Class Pack from Scanning Pens!
