A Superintendent Writes... Attrition Plan Doom Loop - Part 2

In response to the 2/27/15 post, “Attrition Plan Doom Loop,” a LYS Superintendent shares the following:

SC,

This reminds me of a conversation we had when we first met and I was an Assistant Superintendent over HR (over 6 years ago). Our district was in a difficult financial situation and we were managing the budget through an attrition plan.  You advised us to amend the plan as soon as possible because we were accelerating the brain drain in our district.  It was the most hated / best advice I have ever received.  It made us realize that the plan we were implementing wasn’t the BEST plan.  It was simply the best plan for a FINITE time period. And then it was the WORST plan. 

We jettisoned the attrition plan at least 3 semesters sooner than we would have without your advice/ wake-up call.  The result. Two years after the old plan we were outperforming our surrounding districts even though we were the least affluent of our peers.

There are trade-offs we have to make when running a district.  Your value to us in that meeting was reminding us of that fact and helping us ensure that short-term financial gain didn’t turn into long-term student pain.

As always, thanks!

Think. Work. Achieve.

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