Long-range staff plans crucial for growing districts

With personnel costs taking up more than 80 percent of a district’s annual budget, developing a staffing plan is crucial, particularly in a growing district.

The 37,000-student Clear Creek Independent School District in Texas, which is projecting an enrollment increase of 7,500 students over the next five years, developed an effective method for long-range staff planning that other districts can adopt.

Paul McLarty shared the plan at a conference workshop Monday, along with board President Stuart Stromeyer, Superintendent Greg Smith, and Assistant Superintendent Dave O’Neill.

Clear Creek hired a professional demographer to research housing starts and growth data and develop a 15-year housing and enrollment growth estimate. This information allowed the district to predict how many new students would enroll, when they would arrive, and where they would live—and how many new teachers would be needed year to year.

The next step involved the development of long-range facility plans that coincide with student growth. The district used the enrollment projects to plan the timing of bond issues, as well as decide what kind of new schools are needed and how big they should be.

Staffing standards also were set for new campuses to help the district predict the number of full-time employees required to open a new school. Administrators worked closely with senior staff in academic, athletic, fine arts, and operations areas to set a basic level of service for each new campus.

The district reviewed staffing levels at other large Texas districts to determine deficiencies in administrative and operations staffing—including central office, maintenance, transportation, and security personnel—that would result from the increased enrollment.

“For the first time, our district has a staffing road map that guides us through a critical growth period in our history,” McLarty says. “The plan tells us where student growth will occur, when new facilities will be needed to meet that growth, how many new students will join our district over the next 15 years, and how much it will cost to fund that growth.”