Posted by Andrea Bussard-Wonderling on March 04, 2005 at 23:21:53 (PST):
In Reply to: Tax or charge for School Supplies ?? posted by Jimmers on March 04, 2005 at 15:52:00 (PST):
You ideas are great, please don't take offense to what I am writing :)
In Ohio we have a thing called levies, I have talked about them before. Right now in the school district that I work in we have a major problem passing a levy that will cover just our operating expenses. This is a 6.99 mill levy. Over the past 7 years in my district, the state came in and told us that we needed to build a new building. they also told us they would fund 80% of it, the other 20% must come from the community. We worked to pass the levy for the new building and told the tax payers that if they passed that levy, we could rebate them some money on their 03 taxes, because we wouldn't need to compound the permanent improvement levy (that's the one that pays when the heater or the water pipes break, the doors or window, etc.). The community passed the levy for the new building and another levy to build a much needed auditorium. The board graciously gave back some money that they felt they wouldn't need. Come this December, we will be expiring our Opearting levy and have been unsuccessful in passing it. In November when it first failed, field trips have been cut. We've been told to conserve energy and be prepared. :) No our February election has passed and it failed again. Things they are looking to cut now are, well we don't know exactly, because the things that they could cut aren't cost effective cuts because we are afraid that our students will leave and go to a neighboring school. That means we will lose more money from the state for that child. It's all really confusing, but in the realm of it, our country has chose to create public education and now, with the rising costs and the unfunded mandates (no child left behind), no one feels they can afford to pay the taxes. I'm not sure who is to blame, nor who should pay for it. One thing that I am sure of is that our children deserve an education, just like we had. They are the future of our country. They will be the future teachers, nurses, doctors and community members that will be taking care of us when there is no social security or medicare for that matter and they are not able to read, because the literacy collaborative program that was instituted taught them not to use phonics, and the everyday math program, taught them to multiply before they had mastered their math facts and they were drilled on history and science and no one could figure out why they couldn't make any sense of it, and now they are in their thirties taking care of us, dispensing our medicines. That scares me. As you can tell, the issue of taxes is totally stressing me out. With the failure of this levy, they are telling us that they are looking at every option and the only option to cut the kind of money we need is to cut staff. They say 10-15 teachers. Right now in our high school we have 3 science teachers, 3 math teachers, 3 history teachers, 3 special education teachers (required by law), 2/9 a business teacher (who only teaches computer classes) 1 spanish teacher, 1 french teacher, 1 art teacher, 2 home ec teachers, 1 gym teacher, 1 industrial arts teacher, 1 FFA teacher, 1 principal, 1 guidance counselor and 2 secretaries. Our school is about the size of the Elderton that I remember from the 80s. Needless to say, we don't have any where to cut. One idea they have is to cut electives. We have no idea what is going to happen. So while you are all up in arms about consolidating and trying to cut money. I have truly come to believe that there is no way out. We need education, we must bus students who live so far away from the school (in Ohio it's 2 miles for elementary/middle school), we need staff, electric, heat, lunches and technology (that the business world is mandating) and no one has the means to afford it.
I'm off my soap box now, just thought I would share the perspective of another district to let you all know that you're not alone.
Oh and when I first started teaching, we did have classroom fees and supplies that each student must bring (paper, pencils, etc it usually runs me $50 a kid for my children and that is on top of the bookbags and lunchboxes). They ran from $2.50 for 1/2 credit classes all the way up to $50 for science classes. That was another nice thing our school board did away with to help the people of our community.