Superintendents
The Assistant reads your contracts, your board history and what districts your size have done, then drafts the brief or the reply with a source behind every number.
Most questions that reach a superintendent need someone to dig before anyone can answer them. The Assistant does that digging in your district’s records and the public record, and brings back something you could defend at a board meeting, with the sources attached.
The work
Ask the way you’d ask a member of your cabinet. It works from your contracts, minutes and budget, and comes back with a finished draft in your district’s format.
It reads the contracts involved, the board history and what similar districts did, then drafts your reply. Each figure links to the page it came from, so the answer holds up when someone checks it.
Try asking
A trustee wants to know why we hold five tutoring contracts. Draft my answer with sources by Thursday.
Once the agenda posts, it pulls the history and price of each contract item, notes what trustees are likely to ask and drafts the board item or your talking points on the district template.
Try asking
What should I be ready to speak to at Tuesday’s board meeting?
Trustees and the public will ask how your costs compare. It reads board agendas and bid awards from nearby districts and sets your price beside theirs, with a source on each row.
Try asking
Show the board the true cost of our special education transportation, next to districts our size.
It ranks your contracts by what you could recover, from prices above similar districts to licenses still billed for students who’ve left, and puts a date to act on each one.
Try asking
Where are we starting from? Rank the money in our contracts before the first interim.
When a request lands in your office, it logs it, finds the records and drafts the response against the ten-day deadline. Nothing is released until someone on your staff sends it.
Try asking
Which records requests are due this week, and which ones are still missing documents?
Standing work
Turn any request into a routine. It runs on your schedule, reads the systems you’ve connected and puts the result where you’ll see it.
Workflows
Set it once and it runs every week, covering new contracts, notices coming due and spending close to a board approval. The brief before each board meeting runs the same way, five days ahead.
Try asking
Every Friday at 3, send me five lines on what changed in our contracts this week.
Library
Briefs, analyses and board items the Assistant writes for anyone in your district go to the Library, labeled and searchable, so last spring’s analysis is there when the question comes back.
About the Library
Memory
It starts with a short interview on the first day and keeps notes as you work: who owns which vendor, how you like a brief laid out, when the board meets. You can read, change or delete any note.
Your year
Set routines around the California dates that run a superintendent’s year, and the work lands on your desk before each one.
Every board meeting Coming up
The board approves or ratifies each contract the district signs.
Ed Code 17604
What the Assistant hands you: A brief on each contract item, with the questions trustees may ask and draft answers.
Sep 15 Coming up
Unaudited actuals go to the board.
What the Assistant hands you: Spending by vendor against last year, and what drove the change.
Early Oct Coming up
Census Day sets the enrollment count for the year.
What the Assistant hands you: Per-student contract costs, re-run against the new count.
Nov Coming up
Trustee elections, in even-numbered years.
What the Assistant hands you: A school finance primer for new trustees, built from your own budget and interim reports.
Dec 15 Coming up
First interim report, certified positive, qualified or negative.
Ed Code 42130–42131
What the Assistant hands you: A ranked list of the money in your contracts, with a date to act on each item.
Jan Coming up
The Governor’s budget proposal.
What the Assistant hands you: One page on what the proposal changes for your district.
Mar 15 Coming up
Second interim report certified.
Ed Code 42130–42131
What the Assistant hands you: The contracts check, updated and written up for the board.
May Coming up
The May Revision.
What the Assistant hands you: What changed since January, and which contracts it touches.
Jun Coming up
Budget and LCAP adopted after a public hearing, before July 1.
Ed Code 42127, 52060
What the Assistant hands you: Questions to prepare for the hearing, and the contracts that start July 1.
Try asking
Plain words work. These are requests a superintendent might hand it in an ordinary week.
Board
What should I be ready to speak to at Tuesday’s board meeting?
Trustee
A trustee wants to know why we hold five tutoring contracts. Draft my answer with sources by Thursday.
Analysis
Where are we starting from? Rank the money in our contracts before the first interim.
Research
Show the board the true cost of our special education transportation, next to districts our size.
Document
Write a two-page school finance primer for our new trustee, from our own budget and first interim.
Workflow
Every Friday at 3, send me five lines on what changed in our contracts this week.
Analysis
Which of our large contracts serve a goal in our strategic plan, and which don’t?
Document
Summarize the county’s budget letter: what it asks of us, by when, and who owns each item.
Analysis
Are we still paying for students we no longer have?
Board
Draft the board item for our block-grant plan, with the public hearing notice.
Systems
It works from your board platform, your e-mail and shared drives, and public state data. Your admin connects each system and decides what the Assistant can see.
Privacy and security
Platform
In the demo we’ll show you the Assistant working on that kind of question, and walk you through where your district’s data lives.
