Mo Chridhe

Like many other school districts in the nation, my hometown’s is currently facing a budget crisis. We are $5.5 MILLION short. FIVE MILLION!! The main reason is due to the way the state of Kansas doles out district money: the amount is determined by something relating to how big the county is, NOT how many students are in the county. Anyone see a problem with this? About 50% of the state’s population live in the Northeast corner. So, say there’s a county in Western Kansas that is the same size (square feet?) as one in Northeast Kansas. The Western one could have 100 students, whereas a Northeast one could have 20,000… and they would get the same amount of education money. This is THE biggest issue with Kansas education as of now.

Good old Lawrence has a $5.5 million shortfall. Our district has 1 early education center (PK), 15 elementary schools (K-6), 4 junior high schools (7-9), 2 high schools (10-12), a virtual school (K-8), and an adult education center. A few years back, they closed a few elementary schools and our alternative high school (both horrendous ideas for multiple reasons.) There are currently around 10,000 students. Our city is a community; this is not a place where you can live anonymously.

The school board seems to have only one solution. They SAY they’re trying to find alternatives, but actions speak louder than words. What do they want to do? Close more elementary schools. Close MORE. The last elementary school I attended was the newest, still is the newest, and when I graduated, we had less than 200 kids. They have over 500 now!! We need another school out here, NOT close some and have more kids shoved into this school! And it’s like that all across town- all the schools are at capacity. Some are much smaller than others, but they are at capacity. Closing elementary schools is going to increase class sizes to over 30 kids. I don’t know who came up with this genius idea, but that automatically means lower test scores, less attention, more teacher anxiety. (Oh, not to mention our teachers are the lowest paid in the ENTIRE STATE.) (The school board also has been talking about moving the 9th graders to high school. Whole other story. The high schools are maxed out too… THERE IS NO ROOM FOR 9TH GRADERS.)

Mmm… and should I mention we spent god knows how many millions on two new stadiums for the high schools last year? THAT WE DIDN’T NEED? And how the administration building is the nicest building in the entire district? And how there’s plenty of room for the administration to share an old elementary school building with the virtual school? And how we pay our admin more than our teachers? And how we HAVE more admin than we need?

I honestly don’t know how the fuck this school board was elected. I have yet to meet anyone in this entire city who thinks closing schools is a good idea. I don’t know if there’s a hidden agenda, I don’t know if the city officials are in on this, but education is supposed to come FIRST. Yet, why is it the first cut? (And not just in Kansas, everywhere!) Politicians say we need to improve education, help our children, but no one is doing anything besides take money away.

We live in a very sad, pathetic country.