FWIW that can be reasonable depending on the size of the district. Ours has ~4k+ non-admin employees and 15+ physical plants. That's:
* a large enough headcount that you need an HR department,
* a large enough overall budget that you need a CFO and accountants,
* a large enough physical plant that you need (sizable) facilities and transportation departments (with storage space),
* a large enough IT plant that you need dedicated staff,
* a large enough student body that you need a legal/compliance group (open records requests, mandatory state/fed data collection and reporting, etc.),
* a large enough teaching staff that you need nodes whose primary function is coordinating significant curriculum changes across grade levels and schools,
* a large enough community that a full-time community relations person is cheaper than bringing in a PR firm whenever necessary (every dollar that schools spend or borrow comes from a democratic process that schools have to engage with seriously in all but the most affluent communities),
* and several other functions.
For a place with 4k people, that's dozens and dozens of admins. There are basically two options: build a wing onto a school, or build a stand-alone building. Most districts go the stand-alone route because 1) districts can often get cheap/free land anyways, and 2) it's a good idea to leave that physical space for schools to grow in case population increases.
FWIW I did the "look up all my past employer's [X type of admin] to engineer/sales/marketing ratios and compare to the school district" thing. I couldn't find anything out a whack. But the resulting raw numbers definitely mean the district needs dedicated space for admin folks.
* a large enough headcount that you need an HR department,
* a large enough overall budget that you need a CFO and accountants,
* a large enough physical plant that you need (sizable) facilities and transportation departments (with storage space),
* a large enough IT plant that you need dedicated staff,
* a large enough student body that you need a legal/compliance group (open records requests, mandatory state/fed data collection and reporting, etc.),
* a large enough teaching staff that you need nodes whose primary function is coordinating significant curriculum changes across grade levels and schools,
* a large enough community that a full-time community relations person is cheaper than bringing in a PR firm whenever necessary (every dollar that schools spend or borrow comes from a democratic process that schools have to engage with seriously in all but the most affluent communities),
* and several other functions.
For a place with 4k people, that's dozens and dozens of admins. There are basically two options: build a wing onto a school, or build a stand-alone building. Most districts go the stand-alone route because 1) districts can often get cheap/free land anyways, and 2) it's a good idea to leave that physical space for schools to grow in case population increases.
FWIW I did the "look up all my past employer's [X type of admin] to engineer/sales/marketing ratios and compare to the school district" thing. I couldn't find anything out a whack. But the resulting raw numbers definitely mean the district needs dedicated space for admin folks.