School Finance - Final Reflections on Lessons Learned

After completing this course, I feel much more competent in the area of finance. The self-assessments, lectures, interviews, and readings have helped me tremendously. The assignments (in particular the wiki group activities) were very helpful. Reading the postings from the other groups on blogs and wikis gave me great insights. It was almost like having the opportunity to sit down and interview everyone’s business manager. I believe all of these activities helped me to grasp the basic concepts of school finance.

To begin, the self-assessment was very revealing. My Competency 8 section of the Self-Assessment changed greatly from week one to week five. There is only one area that I believe still needs improvement and that is in the area of working with the school board. In five other areas, I had considered myself needing improvement, but now feel that I am competent. These areas were applying procedures for effective budget planning; facilitating and evaluating effective account auditing and monitoring; establishing district procedures for purchasing, record keeping, and reporting; managing one’s own time and the time of others to enhance district operations; and using revenue forecasting to address budgetary needs. In two areas that I had previously considered myself only competent, I would now mark as strengths. These areas were acquiring, allocating, and managing resources; and applying legal concepts, regulations, and codes.

Over the last five weeks, the lectures, interviews, readings, and other resources have deepened my understanding of school finance. I always enjoyed the lectures, as they set the tone for the week. It is always helpful to hear experienced administrators talk about educational issues. Likewise, the interviews provided an opportunity to sit down with the superintendent and business manager and learn from them about our district, as well as general financial information. The readings were also strong for this course. The websites referenced contained more than enough material to complete the assignments and broaden our knowledge. Finally, the resource section was extremely helpful in this course. The sample data used for our analyses really made some of the more difficult concepts clear.

The assignments were very relevant to the course and helped me to understand many of the practical applications of the material presented. I learned a lot about my own district through the use of our district budget to complete assignments. Using sample data from different districts was also interesting to me. Looking at the data and comparing districts of different sizes and compositions was definitely a learning experience. Using the wikis and working in groups allowed me to compare my observations with others and see things I might otherwise have overlooked. It was also encouraging to see that others were agreeing with my observations and extending my analyses.

Finally, the blogs and reflections of my colleagues were always interesting and informative. The more that I read, the more that I feel I know my classmates in the program. Despite our different backgrounds and work experiences, we are sharing our observations and learning from one another. I was really concerned that the online courses would be difficult and hard to follow, but the discussion boards have allowed us to share and work together much more than I would have imagined. Overall, I am pleased with the knowledge and skills I have learned in this course and feel much better about my ability to work with school district budgets.