Blog — EdOps

Three Best Practices for Creating Action-Oriented Dashboards

As more and more data is made available to educators, data dashboards are increasingly hailed as one-stop, silver bullet solutions to school problems. Despite investing money and staff time into data visualization software and dashboard development, end-users (principals, instructional coaches, and teachers) often don’t find the information useful. We believe that dashboards are not a solution on their own. It’s the analysis and communication of the data that makes it useful to educators and directs their time, passion and attention.

Student DataDan TheisenOctober 2, 20191-30

Make your school budget work for you throughout the year

All too often school leaders go through the process of making a budget – only to let it collect dust once it’s complete. A budget done well transforms abstract goals into concrete numbers and allows you to track progress towards those goals throughout the year. If you are not coming back to your budget on a regular basis as the year progresses, you can stray from your goals and expose your school to unintended risks.

Finance & AccountingDan TheisenSeptember 25, 20191-30

Executing On Your Succession Plan Through Micro-Exposures

We have found in our work around the country that schools struggle to implement their succession plans even after they are created. Too often a succession plan sits untouched until a leadership transition occurs, and the organization stumbles because team members have not been trained on the challenges of roles outside of their own.

Human CapitalDan TheisenSeptember 18, 20191-30

A Deep Dive into Direct Student Expenses – Part 3

Every year, our schools ask us questions like, “How are other schools spending their student recruitment dollars?,” and “How much are other schools spending on student transportation?” While school leaders know what they have spent in the past and plan to spend in the future, they often don’t have helpful information about their peers. Additional student expense categories are covered in this post.

Finance & AccountingDan TheisenSeptember 11, 20191-30

Five Considerations When Determining Centralization of Operations Functions

We all know how complicated it can be to run a single school, but growing organizations face even greater complexity. Through our work with expanding schools, we’ve found some useful questions to keep in mind when determining which roles and responsibilities should remain at individual schools and which should be centralized.

Human Capital, OperationsDan TheisenSeptember 4, 20191-30

The Importance of Entry & Exit Codes

Accurate enrollment records are critical not only for building a clear picture of school demographics and student mobility, but also for ensuring receipt of appropriate funding. Consistently using entry and exit codes are key aspects of maintaining accurate student enrollment records.

Student DataDan TheisenAugust 28, 20191-30

Integrate Your Finance & Student Data Teams During the Enrollment Process

Revenue from annual student enrollment typically makes up 75% to 95% of a school’s budget, so hitting enrollment targets each year is critical. To ensure all parties are able to make key decisions and help the school stay on track, it is important to maintain an open and clear line of communication between Executive, Finance, Student Data, and Operational personnel.

Student Data, Finance & AccountingDan TheisenAugust 21, 20191-30

Understanding and Influencing Your State Report Card

From our conversations with school leaders, we know that state report cards can be challenging to tackle, especially as the school year comes to a close. We wanted to better understand how report card scores fluctuate over time, so we did some digging into trends over the last few years using the District of Columbia’s Performance Management Framework (PMF) as an example.

Student DataDan TheisenAugust 14, 20191-30

A Deep Dive into Direct Student Expenses – Part 2

Every year, our schools ask us questions like, “How are other schools spending their student recruitment dollars?,” and “How much are other schools spending on student transportation?” While school leaders know what they have spent in the past and plan to spend in the future, they often don’t have helpful information about their peers. Additional student expense categories are covered in this post.

Finance & AccountingDan TheisenAugust 7, 20191-30

A Deep Dive into Direct Student Expenses - Part 1

Every year, our schools ask us questions like, “How are other schools spending their student recruitment dollars?,” and “How much are other schools spending on student transportation?” While school leaders know what they have spent in the past and plan to spend in the future, they often don’t have helpful information about their peers.

Finance & AccountingDan TheisenJuly 31, 20191-30

Inputs to Strategic Spending

School leaders often ask us about benchmarking for key spending categories – how does our spending on (curriculum) / (food service) / (security services) / etc. compare to other schools? Our breadth of school partnerships allows us to see how similar schools are allocating their dollars, and how much they are spending overall.

Finance & AccountingDan TheisenJuly 29, 20191-30

Transitioning to Departmental Budgeting

Many smaller charter schools maintain a single budget managed by the Executive Director and COO; however, as schools grow, Executive Directors often choose to empower a larger group of staff members with insight – and input – into their spending plans and activities.

Finance & AccountingDan TheisenJuly 24, 20191-30

Drive Year-Round Decision Making with a Data Calendar

Teachers and administrators need access to high-quality student data to make instructional and intervention decisions. However, getting access to this data can be a challenge in the face of staff turnover, the large number of data systems, the high volume of external data requests, and the lack of coordination among different teams.

Student DataDan TheisenJuly 17, 20191-30

Driven By Data