PXU Participatory Budgeting Toolkit

Goals

• To repurpose the school safety (SRO) budget in a way that transforms school safety, while building safe, healthy, and empowered school communities
• Build community among and between stakeholder groups by inspiring them to engage in their school community more deeply and intentionally, thus, creating new networks and/or peer groups (e.g., Parent/Guardian Boosters, Equity Club, etc.
• Empower and develop stakeholder leaders for future involvement within their school community and District by building skills, knowledge, and capacity
• Expand on civic engagement efforts by exposing stakeholders to the PB process, empowering marginalized groups, and elevating their voice by cultivating leadership and citizenship
• Increase inclusive and transparent decision-making to ensure resources go where they are needed most
• Foster trusting interpersonal relationships with students, parents/guardians, and staff
• Implement school safety initiatives specific to each stakeholder group’s needs and interests

Guiding Principles

• Build Community: Bring people together across all PXU school communities throughout the entire district to share, collaborate and problem solve. Project proposals must encourage an environment which builds mutual respect among staff, students, parents/guardians, and leadership.
• Empower: Enable PXU Community stakeholders to reimagine school safety, identify specific concerns and needs, propose solutions and champion ballot initiatives. Project proposals must cultivate a culture and climate that develops solutions for both physical, emotional, and psychological safety.
• Transparent: Site committees must maintain required data points. Information will be accessible and shared appropriately. Decisions will be made as openly as possible.
• Inclusive: Make special efforts to engage stakeholders who are closest to the issues, face barriers to participating, or are historically underrepresented in decision-making. Site level committee meetings must provide opportunities for stakeholder groups to serve as an integral member of an inclusive school community.
• Equitable: Ensure that every person within each stakeholder group can have equal power over budgetary decision-making related to school safety.
• Achievable: Ensure access to planners and practitioners for research, vetting, and collaboration to refine project proposals for compliance and feasible outcomes that support school safety.
• Informed Decision Making: Idea collection and project proposals will be prioritized based on identified needs brought forth through needs assessment conversations and listening sessions.

PXU Core Values

• Be Compassionate: We are humble, ethical, and treat others with respect, empathy, and kindness
• Be Collaborative: We are better and smarter together, thrive in a culture of transparency, and will seek win-win solutions for all stakeholders.
• Be Committed: We will prioritize the needs of Phoenix Union, our communities, and our students knowing both the challenges and the opportunities that exist within and the surrounding PXU community.
• Be Courageous: We are bold in our convictions and will create safe spaces for stakeholders to reimagine school safety and make difficult decisions to better the lives of our staff, students, and parents/guardians.
• Be Creative: We will inspire innovative and flexible solutions for reimagining school safety.
• Be Conscious: We are cognizant that school safety is complex and multifaceted. We will empower participants to make decisions that take into consideration the personal, professional, and political implications for all stakeholders.