Hi, I'm Ryan Kachold
I never planned to study school finance, until one doctoral course changed everything. I started as a classroom teacher, then moved into school leadership, leading in communities on opposite ends of the economic spectrum. That taught me one thing: budgets are values decisions. This newsletter is where I share what that means for the leaders living it.
Teacher → Principal → Writer
I started as a high school English teacher. No admin title, no responsibility for resources, just a classroom full of kids and a lot to figure out.
Somewhere along the way I moved into leadership. Now I'm a principal, and I teach doctoral coursework on the side. But the questions haven't changed much. How do we spend money in ways that actually reach students? How do we lead in ways that actually help teachers do their best work?
That's what this newsletter is about. Not theory for its own sake. Just the finance and leadership decisions that shape what happens in real classrooms, written by someone who still remembers standing in one.
