Funding is a big part of how our schools run. But sadly, you may have noticed a lack of funding in our school district this new school year. The Helena School Board of Trustees approved about 2.5 million in budget cuts last June. They have about 975k being cut from elementary schools, about 345k being cut from middle schools and 1.2 million being cut from high schools.
Due to this cut, this ended about 52 positions throughout the district. That being about 37 staff and teachers, 3 music and 3 physical education teachers, 4 custodians and 5 paraeducators. Looking for work in the education system is hard right now with next to no jobs open. So, if you came back to school noticing that your favorite teacher was gone you now know why.
The reason for all these cuts is because voters declined the raise of property taxes to raise additional revenue. But to get more and better information was to interview the principal, Mr. Brian Kessler, and the trustee and chair of the budget and finance committee, Ms. Janet Armstrong.
When I spoke to Mr. Kessler he tried to answer my questions to the best of his ability. My first question for both interviewees was how these cuts are affecting the students. Here is what they had to say.
Mr. Kessler stated, “I think that there’s definitely an aspect to the student that’s being affected by this, like class size potential, what we’re able to offer, you know, would be the big things that come to my mind. But that’s another one we’re not quite sure yet on what that would look like.”
Ms. Armstrong said, “The emphasis has been from the board to protect the students as much as possible. So, the stress has been put upon the administration and the teachers, so the staff, the adults. So, I know that some teachers have larger class sizes. Some teachers have a bigger class load. Some of the very junior teachers were not able to renew.”
So based off that information the student base is only really being affected by class size. Which can affect the quality of learning when it comes to more one-on-one connection from teacher to student just because there are so many more students for teachers to worry about. One question I asked Ms. Armstrong stood out to me. I asked, “Can students help get more funding?”
Ms. Armstrong stated, “Absolutely, because your voices matter. I mean, the board talks and people kind of expect us to say what we say, like funding isn’t inadequate, but certainly students can talk, because there’s a big kind of movement against public schools. Not all information is accurate. People don’t seem to still, despite all the Instagram and Facebooking posts and news articles that are out there, they don’t seem to understand the excellence that is done here. They don’t seem to understand how kids are getting a good education here, and what that means. And certainly, students are very good communicators, and they can definitely talk about their own stories.”
So as students we should start to speak up so we can get more funding. If we don’t then it will be much harder for us to get funding so speak up, tell your stories of how public school education has helped you get to where you are today.
