With the enormous budget cuts planned next year, (the cuts are being looked at for the next two years as a whole because there’s too little money for one year) the decisions of what to get rid of is even more difficult. George Washington High School’s School Site Council (SSC) is working hard on deciding what to keep (certain programs, positions, supplies) and what to keep out of the budget, trying to make sure to cover everyone’s opinions. The Community Meeting on March 18th was designed to see how students, teachers, parents, and the community feel about what programs need to be kept. However, the turnout was not so great. Less than 10 students and mostly all teachers attended. The time to discuss each topic was short-limited to two minutes, talk about how much each program/position costs, why to keep it, and what they do.

When making these important decisions, it must be kept in mind that we’re “focusing on the position, not the person”, John Propster, SSC chair says, while most people seemed to be looking specifically at the person who held said position.

         The SSC meeting on March 24th  was a greater turn out than previous ones, with many more teachers attending, not just SSC members. Principal Ericka Lovrin came into the meeting believing that they weren’t going to make any major decisions that day, and although she was right, one major decision was made. Propster suggested to turn in everything they wanted, every program, including an extra class, supplies, and the school nurse.

        Money is extremely tight for the next two years. The school needs roughly 200 thousand to use up the given budget that they will be given, but over a million dollars to keep class sizes small. Normally, the number of 9th graders is small, so their test scores are better, as teachers get to focus more on the students; however, with increasing class sizes even these high test scores are going to be gone. Students will have no room to fail since there is now no summer school, and definitely not enough room to retake classes. Not even any summer school courses gone, and definitely not enough room in classrooms to retake courses.

        The SSC does not have any exact idea of how small their budget is going to be, so they have decided to submit an unbalanced budget, since the district is just going to bring it back to them either way. “It’s a gamble”, says Propster. There is no chance of class reduction, and the school is now considering have a modified block schedule in order to focus more attention onto the many students in a classroom. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to pull out your checkbooks?