The District Resource Allocation Modeler (DREAM) is designed to encourage creative thinking about the use of resources within a school district to support instructional goals. DREAM is not meant to be a budgeting tool, but rather a way to support decision-making and policies concerning resource allocation.

DREAM is pre-loaded with default data that is representative of typical urban, suburban, and rural school districts. You can begin working with this generic district data to obtain a high-level look at key resource levers. As you proceed through the tool you will also have opportunities to:

• Customize the data for your own district
  
  
• Make choices about your allocation of time, people, and dollars with district goals in mind
  
  
• View the trade-offs and potential impacts of these choices on your per pupil spending and overall operating budget.

Although restrictions on funding sources and collective bargaining are a reality for school districts, DREAM removes many of these restrictions to encourage innovative thinking and to help you build a vision for the future.

What You Need To Get Started

If you want to model resource decisions using a generic district, you will not need any district-specific data. To customize DREAM to your district, you will need the following data:

• Class Size Enrollment by Program — This information includes class size by grade for elementary schools, by subject for secondary schools, and by special program such as special education.
  
  
• Staffing — This information includes the number and types of teacher by grade for elementary schools, by subject for secondary schools, and by special program such as special education.
  
  
• Scheduling Information — This information includes typical bell schedules and typical teacher scheduless for the different school levels.
  
  
• Your District's Operating Budget
  

The customized information that you input will become the starting point for the model’s detailed calculations. Don't worry if you are missing values for one or more entries within the tool. When specific data from your district is not available, DREAM will automatically default to average values derived from a set of districts similar to your own.

Types of Data

DREAM is an interactive model that automatically recalculates all values after you enter new information. There are three categories of data with which you will be working throughout this tool:

• "Default" Data — DREAM has been pre-populated with data that simulates three different types of school districts: Urban, Suburban, and Rural. This data will be presented as the Tool's default values unless you enter data from your own district.
  
  
• "Current" Data — For each cost driver throughout the tool, you will see a current value or base case scenario. The current fields can contain one of two types of data:
  
  
• Before you enter information about your district into the tool, the starting values in the current cells are the same as the default values presented by the model.
  
  
• After you enter information about your district (e.g., using the Two-Minute Customization” or on the various "default" pages), the current cells will be automatically updated to reflect the closest approximation of your district.
  
  
• "Revised" Data — Changing the data in the revised cells allows you to explore various "what if" scenarios. You can use the revised cells to enter new values for various cost drivers and immediately see their impact on your district's budget and other key indicators.
  
  

The final numbers produced by DREAM will enable you to weigh the advantages and costs of a variety of school improvement scenarios for your district.

Navigating DREAM

There are several ways to navigate DREAM, including via the gray navigation menu on the left and the specialized tabs and buttons found on each page:

• The Menu — The menu on the left side of the screen will guide you through DREAM in its entirety.
  
  
• Introduction
  
  
• Guiding Resource Principles provides the rationale and educational research underlying the Tool. These principles form the basis for the district and school-based practices highlighted on the menu and throughout the Tool.
  
  
• How To Use This Tool gives you a full set of instructions for navigating the tool as well as a list of the information you will need to customize the tool for your district.
  
  
• Logging Into Your Account allows you to set up your personal account so that you may access the full scope of DREAM.
  
  
• Quick Start
  
  
• Two-Minute Customization is your first opportunity to begin customizing DREAM for your district. DREAM is pre-populated with representative data for school districts of different profiles and sizes. Inputting your own district data automatically replaces the pre-populated data. Don’t worry when specific data is not available for your district. DREAM will make assumptions based on your type of district so that you can still model trade-offs and explore resource options as you progress through the menu.
  
  
• District Cost Drivers
  
  
• If you have not yet customized the Tool, the District Cost Drivers page provides you with a high-level look at the impact of adjusting key budget levers in a typical $750MM urban district.
  
  
• If you have already input your district data during the Two-Minute Customization page, the District Cost Drivers page lets you view the results of experimenting with key budget levers in your district. Please note that District Cost Drivers is a standalone section. Revisions to values that you make in this section will not appear anywhere else in DREAM.
  
  
• Elementary Schools, Secondary Schools, Professional Development, and Compensation and Time — These menu sections allow you to choose from a variety of district and school improvement strategies, viewing the resources required and their impact on the bottom line. Following the on-screen directions and hints, you should allow 2-3 hours for a full tour of DREAM.
  
  
• Reports and Results — Pages in the Reports and Results section summarize the impact of your inputs and choices on key resource indicators such as numbers of teachers, salary, and instructional time, on per pupil expenses and on the overall budget.
  
  
• Buttons — In addition to the main menu and the special tabs, each page within DREAM contains a consistent set of buttons which both help the user navigate the tool and perform specialized functions:
  • Clicking the back and next buttons at the top or bottom of any page will allow you to move forward or backward among the screens in the Tool.
    
    
  • There are also two types of reset buttons at the bottom of each screen:
    
    
  • Clicking the reset page defaults button will clear any data that you have input onto a single page and will reset all values the ERS defaults.
    
    
  • Clicking the reset tool defaults button will clear all data you have entered on all pages within the tool and will reset all current values to the ERS defaults.

Users may proceed through the tool by clicking the next and back buttons shown on every page, or by selecting a particular page from the menu on the left.

DREAM Detailed Processing Instructions

The layouts of every page in the ERS District Resource Allocation Modeler (DREAM) follow a standard format. The following is a sample screen taken from the Two-Minute Customization page:

1. Fields in which users may make entries to add numbers, answer questions, etc. are shown with a yellow background. In the example above, the user has entered a custom district budget of $850,000,000.
   
   

2. Fields in which numbers are displayed to the user (but which may not be changed), are shown on a white background. In the example above, DREAM indicates that a district of the selected size would have 5,263 teachers by default.
   
   

3. On certain fields, waving the mouse over the field's caption will display a hint. The hint provides further information concerning the usage and/or meaning of the information being presented.
   
   

Finally, as mentioned above, clicking the back and next buttons will allow you to move forward or backward among the screens in the tool.