Iowa City schools to adjust staffing based on new formula

IOWA CITY - Some Iowa City school aides, secretaries and administrators will be placed in different buildings this fall as part of a new staffing model administrators are implementing for the first time this summer.

The formula - called a weighted resource allocation model - takes into account the number of students in several categories at each school, weights them and then determines how many hours or full-time positions that school should have.

It will allow the Iowa City Community School District to allocate staff more equitably, administrators have said, using a concrete formula rather than more subjective understandings of school populations.

The district is starting with support staff - including administrators called school administration managers, as well as general education paraeducators and secretaries - this year, said Superintendent Stephen Murley. Administrators plan to implement the model for teachers and other administrators next year, he said.

'It's kind of a phased rollout,” Murley said. 'We're making sure we have worked through all the various variables in the model.”

The district doesn't anticipate that the model will result in major staffing changes, Murley said.

'You're talking about an hour here, two hours there,” he said. In a small number of schools, he said, the model suggests more significant changes, likely indicating the school's staffing needs didn't match up with administrators' perceptions.

The model also does not affect any 'categorical staff,” Murley said - meaning areas such as English language learning (ELL) and special education, for which the district gets dedicated funding. But even for staff members not directly involved with those areas, the changes can be important.

'If you have large numbers of ELL students in a building, that might mean that the school secretary is spending a significant amount of time scheduling interpreters,” Murley said.

The weightings assigned to different categories of students - including those in three levels of special education, English language learners and those qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, among others - are taken largely from the state's funding formula, Murley said.

The model sounds like a good idea on paper, said Coy Marquardt, a representative of the Iowa State Education Association, adding that he's 'cautiously optimistic” about it.

'Looking at the details and how it's implemented - that's where we find out if it's going to work in practice,” Marquardt said.