Bringing Decimal-Level Precision to Staffing: 3 Steps
A Strategy to Maximize Opportunities for Students in an Age of Funding Cliffs
Staffing shortages are a long-standing challenge for many schools, and, unfortunately in some cases, a worsening challenge. Even pre-pandemic, the new teacher pipeline was shrinking: enrollment in teacher education programs dropped by 35 percent between 2009 and 2014 (Sutcher et al., 2016). Looking ahead, recent reports estimate that nationally schools could lose 136,000 more teachers when federal COVID funding runs out in September 2024 and districts have to scale back budgets.
The good news is that by taking a more strategic and precise approach to staffing, it is possible to both preserve the most valuable and impactful services currently funded by COVID dollars and operate within existing class-size targets.
What is Precision Staffing, and how does it differ from your current practices?
You may be thinking, my district already staffs very precisely and uses our existing staff optimally. The reality is that while all school districts consider staffing very carefully and thoughtfully, few bring decimal-level precision to the task.
Truly maximizing the reach and impact of every teacher requires looking at staffing to the decimal place. Doing so can free up existing staff to teach more sections of electives, intervention, or other courses. With this approach, we have regularly seen districts that were certain they had already staffed precisely save $200,000-$300,000 per school – a meaningful amount of money that can be used to fund ongoing priorities and opportunities for students. This approach should not be seen as efficiency for efficiency’s sake; rather, it’s a tool in service of student learning, opportunity, and choice. And in an age of looming funding cliffs, it is a strategy every school district should consider.
Precision staffing is best approached in three phases: begin by understanding what you have, calculate what you will need, and then making strategic adjustments based on enrollment. Let’s dive into each of these three steps in more detail.
Step 1: Understanding What You Have
Without a foundational understanding of how your schools are currently staffed, you cannot know where there is an opportunity to improve. Start by pulling current enrollment for each section of each course from your schedule or student information system. From there, you can quickly calculate average class size by dividing course enrollment by section count to determine variation in average class size across courses.
However, average class size alone is not enough to understand the full picture of current course and staffing practices. Next, you’ll need to look at the range of class sizes in each course. Courses that stand out as having a much wider range of class sizes have low enrollment sections, meaning that there may be an opportunity to staff more precisely.
In the example below, it appears there is an opportunity to staff more precisely in Honors Algebra and in Calculus given the range in class sizes.
Step 2: Calculate What You Will Need
With a solid sense of what you have, you can start to figure out how to make your staffing more precise. Instead of using current course enrollment data, work with next year’s enrollment projections.
Along with projected enrollment, note class-size targets and maximum allowable class size. In the below simple example, we’re assuming the same class-size targets and maximum allowable class size for all math classes. It is worth noting that, while not illustrated here, differentiating class-size targets by course as appropriate according to grade-level, department, and level of rigor is an important tool in any strategic scheduler’s toolkit and is one way a school can align its course and staffing practices with its priorities.
Next, calculate the number of sections required for each course by simply dividing the projected enrollment by target class size. For example, 330 students taking Algebra with a target of 25 students equals 13.2 sections. It is fine to round the number of sections down to 13 because the resulting average class size (25.4) is still below the maximum allowed for math courses (28).
With section counts calculated, determine the required FTE for each course and department by dividing the section count by the full teaching load of a teacher. In our example, each full-time teacher teaches five sections.
Finally, by comparing Projected FTE Needed to Current FTE by course and department, you can see what a difference precise staffing makes.
In our example, school leaders used this data to make informed decisions to staff more precisely for the next school year based on projected enrollment. Despite an anticipated increase in total enrollment, one section of Algebra was dropped to bring the average class size closer to the target class size of 25 students. One section of Honors Algebra was also removed for the same reason, though in this case, the school is still in a tricky spot—the projected average class size is still below the target class size, but removing a second section would result in a projected average class size of 32 students, which is above the district’s class-size maximum of 28 students. A section of Calculus was also removed, resulting in a projected average class size of 28.33 students—just outside of the class-size guidelines but still acceptable to school leaders and the math department. One section of Pre-Calculus was added to account for an increase in projected enrollment. Overall, these changes—removing three sections and adding one section—resulted in a net reduction of 0.4 in FTE. This allowed the math department to add two new sections of math-specific intervention.
For schools that need or want help gathering this data and making the calculations for what is needed, there are software tools, such as Timely, that can help.
Step 3: Make Strategic Adjustments Based on Enrollment
Precision staffing can be taken to an even higher level by adjusting staffing and scheduling again after a school knows actual course enrollment, taking into account changes over the summer and even drop/add course changes during the first week of school. While this may not be common practice, and it is undoubtedly a hassle to revise carefully crafted schedules over the summer and again in the first few weeks of school, it is good scheduling practice—and the most precise way to match staffing to actual enrollment.
Although this kind of staffing and scheduling adjustment may sound difficult, it does not have to be. There are strategies schools and schedulers can use to make the work easier. Here are a few:
Alternate when the course is offered: Reduce the frequency of when the low-enrollment courses are offered to every other year or every other semester. Offering a course less frequently often doubles the number of students in the class when it is offered.
Combine low-enrollment courses with related courses: Get class enrollment closer to the guidelines. For example, combine a section of Spanish 3 with 14 students with a section of Spanish 4 with 9 students or watercolors with AP Art and Art 4. This is most common in noncore offerings like art, where students work mostly independently, or high-level world language classes.
Set minimum enrollment thresholds, communicate them, and implement them with fidelity: Only offer a course if a minimum enrollment threshold is met. Make sure that school leaders, teachers, students, and families are aware of the threshold by noting the threshold in the course catalog and course selection guidance and highlighting that the courses listed in the course catalog may not run if they do not meet minimum enrollment. Establish a clear process and ultimate decision maker to determine exceptions; usually the principal in large districts or an assistant superintendent of teaching and instruction in smaller districts. Finally, enforce the threshold with very few (if any) exceptions.
As you move to implement precision staffing, consider two practical recommendations for reducing pushback and achieving success. The first is to embrace attrition or voluntary transfers, rather than a reduction in force, whenever possible. The second is to use part-time or shared staff when precision staffing calculations result in a departmental need for a partial FTE, rather than rounding up. While part-time positions and sharing staff are not yet common practices, more and more districts are trying it and finding ways to make it work.
Using these strategies can help your school or district successfully staff more precisely and successfully navigate the looming funding cliff to continue provide ample opportunities for students. For additional strategies that can make adjusting schedules based on actual enrollment easier, see It’s Time for Strategic Scheduling: How to Design Smarter K-12 Schedules That Are Great for Students, Staff, and the Budget, Chapter 9.
David James is a former teacher and middle school administrator who serves as an advisor to more than 40 school districts across 15 states. He is co-author of the It's Time for Strategic Scheduling: How to Design Smarter K-12 Schedules That Are Great for Students, Staff, and the Budget, now available on Amazon.
He also leads the Secondary Scheduling Academy, an accelerated hands-on training program for school and district leadership teams to enhance capacity for strategic scheduling, build buy-in for changes, and design effective, best practice-aligned schedules that are better for students, teachers, and the budget.