7/22/05
Parents must be involved in how school districts spend new monies
School Boards and administrators have an opportunity to use the new money from the state to reduce fees, add back some co-curricular activities and restore money to the bus system so kids wonít have to walk so far. The Minnesota Legislature is giving K-12 education $800 million in new money for each of the next two years.
When boards had to cut budgets, they increased fees for extracurricular activities. They cut out some activities particularly at the junior high school levels. And they saved on bus transit money by making kids walk farther to school, thus eliminating buses.
The first reaction of some boards, prodded by teachers groups, will be to hire back all the laid off teachers to keep class sizes low.
This is an appeal to some school boards to show backbone, stand up for kids and use some of those new dollars to restore activities, lower fees and lessen studentsí walking distance.
Some board members, however, will look at these matters only to be told that parents have been able to pay them, that the activities donít seem to be missed and kids managed to walk the longer distances.
Itís well known that some numbers in extracurricular activities are down because parents canít afford the fees. The quality of the programs havenít suffered as much because parents manage to afford the fees when their kids are excelling.
The students who donít excel and whose parents canít afford the fees are the very ones who may need the lessons that can be taught through involvement in extracurricular activities.
Researchers say one good indicator of a studentís successful high school education is involvement in extracurricular activities. Every student should have an opportunity to be involved in something besides classroom subjects.
The cost of two teachers at $100,000 would go a long way to giving every kid a chance to be in an extracurricular activity.
This is not intended to mean that teachers should forgo a pay increase or give up benefits to help more kids be in extracurricular activities.
This is intended to convey that kids suffered when their activities were cut and their fees were raised because money was tight, and incidentally, to help pay increases in salaries for all staff. Why should they not receive some benefit of the additional money?
Some will argue that lower class sizes are the best benefit a kid can have. This is a strong argument during the school day, but much needs to be done to have students meaningfully involved in out-of-school time.
Parents need to tell the school board their priorities now as boards ponder how to spend this new money. -- Don Heinzman
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