Cutting the Cash
The budget cut this year cut as pretty brutal according to a news article from News-Herald. “The city cut their budget by almost $500,000. We went from $586,000 to $94,000.”
Digging deeper into the set-back will allow us to get some introspective to what LCHS really has to say. Some classes are requiring fees now, online classes are no longer available, some question if our budget is distributed equally. I interviewed some students and teachers and some were let-down by them taking out online classes.
“I took 6 online classes last school year and they all helped me improve,” said Mckay Carino (11)
Online classes are crucial to some students. For example they help students focus more on their career path or even self-expression. Allowing students to take their normal classes online leaves room for what they really want to do, or what they wish to specialize in. Taking away this necessity leaves people disappointed.
“Having online classes for students gives them more flexibility,” said Coach Cortez
The budget cut dilemma caused more classes to charge fees to their students. Most argue it is perfectly normal, and most schools charge fees for the classes that we have had for free in the past. They insist that our school has been fortunate. Torbet speaks about her high school experience and how she had to pay fees.
“I paid fees in highschool, a lot of school districts don’t necessarily have the budget as our school does.” said Torbet
Some students believe fees are perfectly normal, paying money for your selected extracurricular or class allows them to pay for the necessities of the subject.
“Some of the electives need to have fees due to the fact that they need money to pay for the equipment,” said Charlie Orr (12)
Moving onto the question if our school distributes its budget equally throughout the school for example; between sports, the art department, math, science, extracurriculars, and clubs. I got feedback from the people here at LCHS.
“Me personally I think our school is doing a decent job at spreading our budget equally, I believe there are ways for them to improve, but for the most part I think their doing an okay job,”Everardo Gonzalez (11) said.
The distribution of our budget is only up to the school-board to a certain extent whether we think it is fair, or not. The school has to spend money on certain things according to the state.
“The reality of it school is expensive to operate, and the state does not give us the money we need to operate to our full potential,” Mr. Huff said.
The school has to pay for what is demanded by the state of Tennessee, leaving the rest for what the staff decides to do with it. They take into account who needs funding, and who doesn’t.
“Band is an expensive extracurricular that costs a lot of money. Band gets our funds from fundraisers, through alternative funding sources, and fees,” Huff said.
In conclusion, our school is funded by the state and cannot control where all the money goes. We overspent some of our money last year. With online classes, they are crucial for many people to graduate. Despite this, people believe that fees are necessary for our school and is perfectly normal.
