PXU Participatory Budgeting Toolkit

Designing the Process

The District PB Coordinator and oversight committee sets process guidelines, creates a budget and timeline, and works with Principals and District leaders to select Stakeholder Sponsors and prepare for workshops. Stakeholder Sponsors (student, staff, and parent/guardian) will be identified for each campus/site. Each Sponsor will help recruit site committee members and run site committee meetings to ensure that our school's diverse voices are represented in the process. Each site committee meets to decide on their team name, review the process guidelines, goals and norms that will support the stages of PB.

Idea Collection

Each Stakeholder site committee helps their fellow stakeholders discuss school safety needs, and brainstorm ideas and solutions. Examples include virtual conversations, lunch and/or club presentations, social media, QR Codes or online surveys, and/or other creative ways!

Proposal Development

With the support of Site Sponsors and district staff, change agents (student, staff and/or parent volunteers) work in teams to review and sort ideas collected from their school community. District Steering Committee members will turn ideas into project proposals through research, vetting and collaboration. Planners and practitioners work with district staff to approve projects for the final ballot.

Campaign & Vote

Site committee members, Change Agents and Grassroots partners share the final projects with their school communities. Stakeholder groups are encouraged to share their ballot initiative (projects) with flyers, virtual presentations, video ads, on social media, and/or in their school newspaper/newsletter. District steering committee members plan a district-wide vote where stakeholder groups decide on which projects to fund.

Implementation & Evaluation

The Site PB Stakeholder Sponsors and Steering Committee members are responsible for submitting the PB Project Requisition Template and approved proposal documents so a requisition can be entered, which starts the purchasing process. All students, teachers, planners, and practitioners who were involved in the PB process monitor the implementation of project proposals, then celebrate and evaluate the process for the next cycle.