User's Guide: Field 8
In$ite Financial Information

What you are looking at
The In$ite Finance Analysis Model for Education^TM described above in 'In$ite comes on-line' gives us the opportunity for the first time to view school-level expenditures for the schools in every school district. The legend in the middle of this chart shows In$ite's four major categories of school-level expenditures - Instruction, Instructional Support, Operations, and Leadership - and also lists the components of the Instruction category. The pie chart on the left shows the allocation of all school expenditures into the categories described in the center legend, and includes expenditures for all school programs - General Education, Special Education, Limited English Proficient, Title I, and Vocational Education. The pie chart on the right shows the same categories of expenditures, but only for the General Education program. The table at the far right shows the per pupil expenditure in each major program, but please note that the per pupil is not based on a simple headcount, but a student count according to the full-time equivalent (or FTE) of time spent by students in the various programs.

What you are looking for
You are looking to get a sense of how your school allocates its resources to provide the educational opportunities for its students. Since this is the first time school-level information has ever been available, it should provide another basis of discussion about each school. Expenditures might reflect the especially high or low challenges of the children in the building or educational decisions that require a different-than-average investment. For example, a major investment in new textbooks in a school or across a district would impact the per pupil expenditure in the 'Classroom materials' category of Instruction.

Per pupil expenditures
All expenditure dollars on the school and district charts are expressed as a per pupil figure. These per pupil expenditures are not based on a simple head count, but are based on the Average Daily Membership (ADM) of students and then their full-time equivalent (FTE) in their respective programs. For example, a student "A" enrolled for an entire school year in a full-day program equals 1 FTE. If a student was not enrolled for the full year, his or her FTE would decrease by the time not enrolled. For example, student "B" enrolled for a half a year in a full-day program equals ½ or .5 FTE. These would be calculated as follows (x means multiply):

(It should be noted that a full year ½ day kindergartener would also be ½ FTE.)

Each student's full FTE is then divided by the portion of time spent in the various educational programs provided to that student. The major programs are General Education, Special Education, Limited English Proficient/English as a Second Language (LEP/ESL), Title I, and Vocational Education. A child's participation in Special Education Resource or English as a Second Language (ESL) is counted only as a percentage of that child's day. To use the students shown in "A" and "B" above, we'll show their program FTE's if the students have ¼ of the day in Special Education, ¼ in ESL, and the remaining ½ of the day in General Education.

In$ite category structure and definitions
View or download a chart of the In$ite Functions in PDF (7KB) 
The charts used on both the school page and the district page give the per pupil expenditures of the detail functions of the Instruction category: 1) Instructional (classroom) Teachers, 2) Substitutes, 3) Instructional Paraprofessionals, 4) Pupil-Use Technology and Software, and 5) Instructional Materials, Trips and Supplies. The definitions of the expenditures included (and excluded) from these categories are shown below:

Instruction

Face to Face Teaching:

Classroom teachers (translated from instructional teachers)

• Includes: Salaries and related employment costs for teachers who interact with pupils face-to-face or via electronic means; classroom, hospital and homebound teachers; cost of third-party instructional services for district students (e.g., advanced college courses or specialized classes provided by another district); the cost of travel for hospital, homebound and itinerant teachers; only the teaching portion of an expenditure for department chairpersons who also teach; driver education teachers if taught during normal school hours, offered without a fee and restricted to students (otherwise Extracurricular category); music instruction (e.g., band) that is taught during the day as part of the curriculum, and tutoring (e.g., SAT, ESL); and school-to-career staff, if doing face-to-face teaching.
• Excludes: nurse teachers even if face-to-face teaching occurs (Student Health and Services category); school to career staff involved in placement (Guidance and Counseling category); teachers working with classroom teachers (Staff Development category).

Substitutes

• Includes: teachers substituting for classroom teachers listed above unless the reason is staff development.
• Excludes: teachers substituting for classroom teachers because of staff development (Staff Development category); and substitutes not in the classroom (e.g., a substitute for the Librarian would be included in the Library and Media category).

Instructional paraprofessionals

• Includes: paraprofessionals who spend the majority of their time in the classroom or with the teacher.

• Excludes: One-to-one paraprofessionals whose primary responsibility is that of physical attendants (Therapists, et al category); non-instructional paraprofessionals, aides and graders assigned to teachers (In-Service, Staff Development and Support category); and all others (Instructional Support, Operations, or Leadership category based on the function of their work).

Classroom Materials

Pupil-use technology and software

• Includes: technology and software that pupils use; salaries and related employment costs of staff who are dedicated to support technology instruction, pupil-use network management, or computer lab support personnel; expenditures for dedicated telephone lines, maintenance and repair, and service contracts; purchases and/or lease payments for pupil-use computer equipment;
• Excludes: Technology instruction (Face-to-face Teaching category); technology instruction of professional and support staff (Staff Development category; or if for support staff a category based on the function of their work); technology and software for purposes other than pupil-use (belongs in a category based on its intended use); printer, paper, ribbons, diskettes, etc. (Instructional Materials category)

Instructional materials

• Includes: the cost of instructional materials and supplies; staff dedicated to managing the selection of those materials and supplies including textbooks, paper, lab materials, test forms, workbooks, chalk, markers, maps and charts; all classroom instructional equipment other than pupil-use computer equipment; tests; field trips that are instruction related; equipment used for presentations by master teachers; televisions dedicated to the classroom; equipment used for distance learning instruction; salaries and employment costs of staff that manage classroom materials.
• Excludes: test-related research and development and the personnel involved in that process (Curriculum Development category); non-instructional trips (e.g., band, glee club - Extracurricular category); projectors, video players, video-conferencing equipment, TVs mounted in classroom (Library and Media category)

Definitions for all detail categories will be available on the RIDE website (www.ridoe.net) in late spring. They are also available at any district's school business office.

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