Once again, I had the pleasure of adding my resources to the collective table in the name of parental empowerment at the Citywide Leadership Team Legislative Conference which was held in Brooklyn on October 26, 2023.
After the event I was asked a wonderful question pertaining to funds that are given to school leadership team (SLT) members. It occurred to me that perhaps I could offer some information on this topic because we all know that when we are informed, we become empowered. So please consider this a short primer on SLT funding in NYC public schools.
In this era of transparency, practically every dollar that a school receives is described and explained under a corresponding school allocation memorandum (SAM) which is posted on the NYC Public Schools’ website. Although payments to SLT members do live inside the school budget they are not subject to an announcement via the SAMs. The SLT funding is manually scheduled into a budget which for example is in contrast to Parent Coordinator funds whose positions and supply budgets are allocated from the central budget office and publicly shared by way of the SAMs. In my days at the Regional Operations Center 8 (downtown Brooklyn) budget staff was available to assist schools in scheduling the SLT funds but today Principals are probably savvy enough to remember to do this themselves.
Chancellor’s Regulation A-655 is the authorizing body of rules that discusses School and District Leadership Teams. Regulations concerning payments to SLT members is found in Section IX, paragraph A. The rules state that school leadership team members are entitled to receive an annual stipend of $300 per person, as long as they serve on the team for 30 hours and take an annual training related to the comprehensive education plan and the school budget. The total amount of money allotted to any school SLT will be $300 times the number of members. SLTs must be at least ten people and no more than seventeen which would of course translate to total SLT budget sizes somewhere between $3,000 and $5,100. The regs indicate that the number of members needs to be considered with regard to the size of the budget and this is because the funds are allocated from within the school budget itself.
Other than this, the regulations go further to discuss the need for documentation of hours served, the importance of recordkeeping with respect to attendance and minutes, and also the ability of team members to waive the stipend and donate back to the school if they choose to do so. What the regs do not say is when and how stipends will be dispensed nor does it discuss how much or how little can be donated back. The regulations also do not specifically state what money must be used to fund the SLT budget although it’s possible that schools receive guidance and best practices about this from the central office. My final thought is that SLT regulations were written with a bit of wiggle room for interpretation on these points so perhaps this gives space for SLTs to creatively use their funding to serve their students if they desire to do so.
Need more info about SLT funding? Reach out to me at Nyefadvocate@gmail.com. Wanna know more about parent advocacy and the SLT? Reach out to the Citywide Leadership Team at NYC.CLT1@gmail.com.
