New Topic, Week of 4/12-4/19

All right: I know most of you are Seniors, and so don't have any personal stake in what happens at this school next year; and several of you have already discussed this, possibly at length, possibly in more than one class.

Too bad. It's a good topic, and we're going to talk about it again.

St. Helens School District, which includes all of the schools in St. Helens from McBride to SHHS and CCEC and CRYC, is looking at a budget shortfall next year. At last projection -- and there will be more information given over the next couple of months -- it was set at approximately $2.8 million.

This means that everything is going to get cut at least a little bit, some things a whole lot. Some teachers are going to lose their jobs, along with some administrators, counselors, classroom aides, secretaries -- you name it. It also means some programs will be cut, including athletics, which will have fewer contests next year, and programs like music and art and the technical classes, as well. Student fees for the programs that remain will go up, as will class sizes. There may be days cut out of the school year (Don't get excited -- they'll cut non-class days first.) or some other change to the schedule. Of course, all of Oregon and pretty much the entire country is facing the same problem, so there's nothing remarkable about all of this -- except for the fact that this is our school, our town, our lives.

So what do you think? First of all, what do you think the district should do to save money? Is there anything the district absolutely should not do to save money? What should the school's priorities be, and how should the budget cuts for next year reflect that?

A few things: please, PLEASE don't spend your entire post complaining about ways the school spent money this year. I don't need to hear about the cameras or the snow days. Start thinking about next September. And please remember that employee layoffs are determined by seniority (who has worked here the longest), not who you like the best or who you think does a good job. So just because you think Mr. Humphrey is a crappy teacher, you can't say that we should save money by firing Mr. Humphrey. Okay? You could say we should cut an English teacher, if you think we have too many at the high school (We have seven English teachers, by the way -- Language Arts is the largest single department), but you can't pick on one specific person.

All right, fire away.