Generational change for the ACT school system, as recommended in the new resourcing review, will be an important step to ensuring schools meet the needs of all students. Achieving this change will be important, but an uphill battle.
After it was revealed more than 80 per cent of ACT schools would go over budget, annual reports showed the directorate spent more than budgeted on staffing for eight years in a row.
In September, education minister Yvette Berry said the directorate would make adjustments to the budget and was able to top up spending without question.
But when the spending was for $70 million more than budgeted, the minister said a review was needed to know what the problems were.
Ms Berry has said the review highlights problems we knew were there but gives justification for why changes need to be made.
Whether it is apathy, willful ignorance or it has just been easier to ignore the problems, there appears to be a culture of not listening to teachers despite them saying there have been issues for years and the annual reports backing them up.
The review cautions against too many competing policies and calls for a streamlined approach to the way the directorate and schools work together.
It said the central office is not accountable enough to schools and there is an "us vs them" mentality between the two groups who are supposed to be working together for the next generation's education.
It also said there are underlying systematic problems that need to be addressed rather than just increasing the budget to fund the overspends - which would not fix the underlying problems.
For example, the directorate and schools use two different accounting software, making data sharing difficult and creating a duplication of tasks so systems can talk to each other.
Schools are also all in charge of buying their own software or tools, even if it would be cheaper for the whole system to buy something lots of schools use.
Some of the system-changing work has begun, but many of the government's responses to the review includes a plan to do more work and research before taking another step.
Ms Berry argues this is an important part of bringing the school community along for the journey, creating a system that works for everyone rather than dictating from the top.
But it also means, after more than six months of waiting to see what we would be doing about school budgets, there is more waiting to come.
And it involves a bit of public trust that the extra information gathered and changes that will be made as a result will be transparent to the wider community, rather than parents encountering problems because their child is unable to access the services they need.
There has not been the best track record for changes like this in the past, earlier this year Yarralumla parents raised concerns a new learning and teaching policy was going to affect their Italian language program.
And there of course concerns with the government's rollout of previous HR systems.
In the meantime, teachers are striking because they are negotiating new workplace agreements and after almost a year no offer has been put forward by the government.
The directorate has said these processes are completely separate and they have not been waiting on a review before handing down an employment offer.
But on the ground the two issues do not look all that separate. Teachers want more resources to better deal with the challenges they face in the classrooms.
Challenges they are facing today. I don't think they will be able to wait years for some of the immediate relief which is needed.
