i was wondering if anyone else's school diverts funds away from education (the first purpose of the school) and the arts.

i read the latest funding bulletin that the school board put out. funding for all education (art, music, science, math, english, etc.) is going to be about $120 thousand next year. it's really not enough to begin with, but it gets worse.

school regulated sports-not activities, but just sports- get $160 thousand next year. activities-debate, speech, theatre, etc. get a bit under $30 thousand. (this is for 20 groups to share, and student council, which i do not support in any way, shape or form, used just over $10 thousand last year.)

this just isn't right! but hey, if new uniforms will get our team a state tournament trophy to put in our $700 state tournament trophy case, then by gosh, give that team some new uniforms!

Brittanie872005, I feel the same way you do. My school system just added on to our middle school, our high school has a new gym and score board and we have classrooms that are not even being used. I personally think it is a waste of money. All in all the total was like 250 million for the school districts and then it dropped down to about 100million and that is where it stands now. We have such a budget crissis right now that everyone is worried about loosing there job due to cuts and the students are the ones being screwed over because of it. I know that a new school is nice but no one to my knowledge looked around the corner before the school district took on such a huge debt. The city promised the tax payers that this is what the town needed and it would cost them less in the long run, but right now there taxes are out rageous and the school has less students and they are making the people of the city pay for just about everything including extra curicular activities. So tell me where is the sence in that. The people of this town have been lied to and now there is a big rumor going around as to the city council missusing funds and even ripping the city off of tax payers money. So again I ask how good of an idea was it to build this money pit and then lie to the people who are paying for it? Greed is taking over in our school systems and it is running rampant. Principles are buying pop machines and stocking them and getting paid on the side for this which is the last time I check solicitation. But yet noone cares and the school just keeps getting further in debt becuase of bad financial decisions. When does it stop? I fear that if we dont find a solution soon our schools will be forced to close down another school as well.

Our school board is really making me mad. They are cutting everything and it really bugs me. They are cutting things such as CACC which stands for capital area career center which is a place that students were able to go during there junior and senior year for classes that are also college credit. It was kind of like a junior college or so that students that didn’t want to go to college still had a little bit of experience. They are also not filling in teachers that are retiring. And what really bugs me is that they are adding on to the junior high school here and our school is a lot older. they are cutting things like orchestra and madrigals and co op.

most companies in the world dominate over the world of the arts. in our own personal way we can change the school and form it to create more arts so it could appeal to many more and create more equality in the economic world that art is just not for looking at.

In band we suffer with bad stands, horrible facilities and even worse instruments. The arts are just as important as sports. If you take the funding away from the art classes what will you have left? A bunch of snobby jocks. I say, give us more of that money instead of giving it to the sports teams. At my school you have to pay to get into the games, and with 1200 people in our school and almost everyone going to every game they'll make plenty of money. Why should the arts have to suffer through fund-raising and car-washes? Sports teams should do the same. THey should have to work for what they get just as much as the bandies, the singers, the painters, the photographers and so on. That's my opinion. Give some of that money to the arts instead of taking them away from us. Who said art wasn't important in the first place??

you get to reate soft drinks in school!!!! that ****ing rocks!

I am a cheerleader. Most don,t consider us athletes, including my principal. Our athletic fund was supposed to be split evenly between the 20 of us and the other athletic programs. That didn,t happeen! She let the other programs take all of it. My coach was up at the office for an hour. my principal told her," Oh, yeah. Have those cheerleaders clean out the trophy case- while you,re at it."
My coach turned and looked at her and said,"Okay, we don,t get any money, but we do get to clean out the trophy case."

She was extremely mad avout it and so were we.
We still don,t get the respect we deserve. Therefore, we work even harder to earn it. Next year she promised that we would get the money we deserve.

Yours truly,
CCheergirl102

Wow, suspension, huh? I don't think that would ever fly at our school. Maybe you'd get called down to the office to talk to your/a principal, but that's about it. Last year my sister and friends made shirts saying "Equal Rights for John" (John being a friend of theirs who was rather unfairly getting in a lot of trouble with the school.)

We have a courtyard thing too, and like you, it's locked up. It's got benches, and some dead stuff, but is mostly dirt.

ahh, i get it. we have about 2000 students, but only one principal. we're having a staff redo, and assigning new counslers and everything. this way, we can give them starter salaries and fire them on the "first hired, first fired" rule. it saves a lot of money, so we can buy trees for the courtyard that students can't use. (the idea is that we learn better with natural light, so every room needs windows. the problem is, it left the a big hole in the middle of the school, so they locked it up and put trees in there. i want to use it for a senior prank next year, and lower as many members of our class in there as possible, and have a party.)

a bunch of people made "refuse to sell out to the schools" shirts last year. a week of in school suspension. claimed it was "disruptive behavior". we all know that it was that they broke the code.

Ah, the 5 principals thing, just another example of the excessive waste of my school. 1 for each class, the head. Most high schools, even the big ones, have at most 2 principals, well not dear ol' FHS, yeah that's right, we have 5. Count it, 5. f-i-v-e. (big sarcasm here, kids) Why do we need 5? Frankly, I'm not sure. I know that yeah, we have a pretty good sized population at the school (2400) but that still doesn't explain it. Yeah, I agree, it's crazy.

That's wonderful that your "educators" have you rate soft drinks. I mean, they're bought by the companies who don't care if you have no teeth and are fat. Yahoo!

Fun idea: Make yourself a shirt: Cannot be Bought(although that hints at prostitution) or "Your corporate logo here"

ahh...ad space. i thought it wasn't too bad until we were asked to rate new soft drinks. it's like the episode of the simpsons where the kids are being used to develop a new toy.

outspokenme--how do you have 5 principals? that's crazy!

I suppose it could be worse. Some schools sell ad space, my school doesn't really do that. Last year, some how, all the principals (5 of them) were handing out Reese's Fast Breaks at the lunches, and if you didn't take one from one principal, you were swooped down upon by another. I was scared, but refused those nasty things from all of them. I will not be bought. Yeah!

Funding should be more equally distributed.

Actually fotball does make money, a whole heck of a lot. Even when the team sucks the revenue from football (and sometimes basketball) often end up paying for the other sports, it is seriously that much of a cash cow. And since good teams make even more than bad teams, more money is put into it.
This, in my opinion. isn't a good thing. Schools shouldn't be about profits. They should have the money to make ends meet. It's a tragedy when this doesn't happen.
And making sports so important detracts from the more important parts of schooling. All in all it's a bad situation, but it's working for some...

That is very true uptowngirl904. It is not fair the way moneys are distributed in our school systems. We have placed an importance on excelling at sports due to greed and the almighty dollar. It makes me sick, the way that people use young people to better their own situation all while destroying a generation by instilling false dreams and fake realities. Arts and cultural understanding are skills that keep on giving, while sports offer only one and that is if your not the absolute best then you wont make any money.

while i understand that speech is not a money maker for the school, football isn't either. the football team's boosters club gets most of the money, so the team can take coach busses to michigan to loose to the same team every year. the uniforms are in fine condition, and will not make the team win more or less. and as outspokenme said, i don't see the need for all those soccer fields. we also have an over-abundance of fields in the area, yet the school insists that we need more.

the first intent that i had of this rant, was that i was upset that the school board gave extracurriculars more money than the school itself. the math department will be using the same pre-calc books next year as they have for the past 11 years. while lack of arts funds makes me upset, the lack of educational funds makes me more upset.

the other problem that i said in my second comment, was un-even distribution of funds among sports. while our girl's hockey team has not had a very good record, it still doesn't mean that they should practice on a frozen lake.
the first purpose of the school is to teach academics, not football or debate or drama (unless it is in a class.)

You guys are right when you wonder why other activities dont recieve as much money from the yearly budget but why should they? I know diversity and choice are good reasons but tell me why the schools should give more money to the speech club and not the football team? What it breaks down too is money. That is the one thing on everyones mind. The school board really doesnt care about not having a glee club anymore than they worry about their new car starting when they put in the key. They are in the middle of a government short fall and a budget crisis. Schools are loosing money hand over fist and they need to control it so they can continue to educate and give the most extra curicular activities possible. This is how it breaks down, schools opperate by tax payers taxes that come in from area residents. They also recieve tax breaks and additional funding from the government for housing the students and dont forget the school lunch program more money in there too, then you add in donations from outside sources and lets not forget the sports programs which also bring in money from ticket sales, snacks and any other items they sell to people. All of that money goes into the school and then it is suggested to each need and then weighed as too its importance and then the funds are distributed appropriately. The point I am trying to make is this the school will buy new uniforms for the football team way before the speech team would recieve transportation for there meets. Football is the money maker or whatever sport your school is good at, but the speech team I dont think amasses quite as much attention or monetary funds into the school. I know its not fair but when budget issues arise this is what happens first the school cuts programs that dont generate a great deal of monetary funds.

My school district always cuts the arts budget, but rarely cuts sports. We have, in my city, soccer fields for use by the school and the school's summer programs. Yet, apparently, this is not enough. There is already talk of making even more soccer fields closer to the high school. It is truly wasteful to have that many soccer fields, when the arts budget is meager, so parents do a lot of fundraising for us. It's sick, really.

I can understand an emphasis on sports, as there are many more available, however, without proper art funding, the school denies way too many truly gifted musicians and artists an education.

yeah, i know what you mean. our girls hockey team had to play on a frozen lake for a few weeks, because the school gave rink money to boys basketball.

and activities, like speech and debate, are in desperate needs of funding. this year, the speech team has 40 people, and we still have to drive ourselves to the meets, of which the closest is 25 minutes. argh!

I don't know anything about the way my school distributes money.

But I will admit that sports get a lot of support. I hate that, because I don't play any.

I used to, though, and it always surprised me that my softball team had to beg for equipment and uniforms, when the football team had only to raise a finger to get what they wanted.