Ashley Community Schools - STEP 2A: NCES Administrative Staffing Comparison

[Shadowninja]

Dearest reader, Lady Budgetdown has now taken Ashley Community Schools through a second staffing ledger.

And Step 2A gives us a little more detail about where those administrative numbers actually sit.

According to the NCES staffing files:

District/central-office administration increased from 3.00 FTE to 3.70, up 23.3%.

School/building administration went the opposite direction, falling from 0.50 FTE to 0.30, down 40.0%.

Put together, total administrative FTE increased from 3.50 to 4.00, up 14.3%.

Meanwhile, total staffing grew from 34.81 to 42.12 FTE, up 21.0%.

And all of this happened while pupil count fell from 268 to 192.75, down 28.1%.

Now, Ashley is tiny. Her Ladyship cannot emphasize that enough. When you're dealing with fractions of positions and fewer than 200 pupils, percentage changes can look enormous very quickly.

But that's precisely why I prefer showing you both the actual FTE numbers and the percentages.

The numbers don't tell us why staffing changed. They simply tell us that it did.

And in Ashley's case, two separate staffing datasets are pointing us toward the same broader question:

How does a district lose 28% of its pupils over ten years while ending the period with more total staff and more administrative FTE?

That, my dears, is not an accusation.

It's a perfectly reasonable question for the ledger. 🪶

With receipts and respect.

#LadyBudgetdown #AshleyCommunitySchools #GratiotCounty #MichiganSchools #SchoolStaffing #PublicEducation #FollowTheReceipts