Study of Weighted Student Funding and School-Based Systems (recruitment and study design phase)

APPENDIX E: District Administrator Conversation (Introductory Invitation Email)

Introductory Invitation Email to District Superintendent

[Date]

[Name]

[Position]

[Street Address]

[City, State, ZIP]

Dear [District Superintendent]:

We are writing to invite you to participate in a study supported by the U.S. Department of Education on Weighted Student Funding (WSF) and School-Based Budgeting (SBB) systems. The study involves a set of case studies of 9 districts who have implemented WSF systems to understand how these systems for funding schools have been implemented, and their benefits and challenges.

If you elect to participate as a case study site, we would ask to visit your district in the fall of 2017 to interview key district and school staff to learn more about your WSF system, including 2-3 district officials with the most knowledge of the WSF system (likely including a budget officer and program director), a school board member and/or union representative, and three principals. We would schedule this visit at your convenience. We expect the total time for interviews across all of these stakeholders to be approximately 8 hours.

The U.S. Department of Education has contracted with American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct this study. This study is not an evaluation of your district. Information gathered in this study will be used to inform policy surrounding the implementation of WSF systems.

We will contact you within the next week to answer any questions you may have and to discuss your participation. We look forward to talking with you and hope you will choose to participate as one of our case study sites!

Sincerely,

Jesse Levin

Project Director

American Institutes for Research