• School Spending
  • Taxes-Taylor-Travis
  • TaxesTaylorTravis Part 2
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  • Transparent Trans Talk
  • Finding Jason
  • How Mole-Smart Are You?
  • Crushed (!) at the Exit
  • ALL SHOOK UP !!!
  • 25 Years of Knight Stories
  • JMG !
  • Bulletin Board Blues
  • Do PRHS Girls Feel Safe?
  • Beneath the Surface of Bad Behavior
  • Not Busy Work
  • Eating at School
  • Why College?
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  • Your World Can Be a Stage
  • Streaming Debates
  • Do The Right Thing
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  • We Need Food!
  • Texas Heartbeat Law
  • Grownup Blues and Taxes
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  • Toxic Masculinity
  • Don't Forget Winter
  • Other people's playlists
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  • New Beginnings March 2021
  • Open Letter to AOC: Big Pharma
  • Me and My Snowmobiling Pal
  • For the Love of the Game
  • Animated Films and the Oscars
  • Did the Founders Make America Great?
  • Mask Interviews: Torri
  • Mask Interiews: Olivia
  • Mask Interviews: Kaylee
  • Mask Interiews: Prim
  • The World Stopped Part 5
  • 2020: Greatest Generation?
  • Zombies and Social Distancing
  • The World Stopped When I Was in High School Part I
  • The World Stopped Part 2
  • The World Stopped Part 3
  • The NBA and China: Shared Values
  • Christmas Before Thanksgiving
  • Student Voices March 2019
  • How Taxes Make Us Civilized
  • Run Tristin Run
  • Ken Healey Behind the Big Desk
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • Big Kids (Teachers!) At The Prom
  • Stop Watching Me! (Through the Weight Room Window)
  • Hallway Poster Mysteries
  • One Year of President Trump
  • About
  • Our Wild Decade
  • TrumpCare or ObamaCare?
  • Sisters March (1/23/17)
  • Get a Grip, America
  • Social Media Slave (November 2016)
  • Tax on Women (November 2016)
  • 2015-16 Posts
  • Contact
    • About
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • Run Tristin Run
  • Mask Interiews: Prim
  • Animated Films and Oscars
  • Winning Good. Success Better
  • Why College?
  • Why College?
  • New Page
  • School Spending
  • Taxes-Taylor-Travis
  • TaxesTaylorTravis Part 2
  • Wallkaround Questions
  • Transparent Trans Talk
  • Finding Jason
  • How Mole-Smart Are You?
  • Crushed (!) at the Exit
  • ALL SHOOK UP !!!
  • 25 Years of Knight Stories
  • JMG !
  • Bulletin Board Blues
  • Do PRHS Girls Feel Safe?
  • Beneath the Surface of Bad Behavior
  • Not Busy Work
  • Eating at School
  • Why College?
  • Winning Good. Success Better
  • Your World Can Be a Stage
  • Streaming Debates
  • Do The Right Thing
  • LGBTQ+ Journey
  • We Need Food!
  • Texas Heartbeat Law
  • Grownup Blues and Taxes
  • Safety Net
  • Weird Pandemic Teacher Tales
  • Toxic Masculinity
  • Don't Forget Winter
  • Other people's playlists
  • The Good Old Stuff
  • New Beginnings March 2021
  • Open Letter to AOC: Big Pharma
  • Me and My Snowmobiling Pal
  • For the Love of the Game
  • Animated Films and the Oscars
  • Did the Founders Make America Great?
  • Mask Interviews: Torri
  • Mask Interiews: Olivia
  • Mask Interviews: Kaylee
  • Mask Interiews: Prim
  • The World Stopped Part 5
  • 2020: Greatest Generation?
  • Zombies and Social Distancing
  • The World Stopped When I Was in High School Part I
  • The World Stopped Part 2
  • The World Stopped Part 3
  • The NBA and China: Shared Values
  • Christmas Before Thanksgiving
  • Student Voices March 2019
  • How Taxes Make Us Civilized
  • Run Tristin Run
  • Ken Healey Behind the Big Desk
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • Big Kids (Teachers!) At The Prom
  • Stop Watching Me! (Through the Weight Room Window)
  • Hallway Poster Mysteries
  • One Year of President Trump
  • About
  • Our Wild Decade
  • TrumpCare or ObamaCare?
  • Sisters March (1/23/17)
  • Get a Grip, America
  • Social Media Slave (November 2016)
  • Tax on Women (November 2016)
  • 2015-16 Posts
  • Contact
    • About
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • A Girl's Best Friend
  • Run Tristin Run
  • Mask Interiews: Prim
  • Animated Films and Oscars
  • Winning Good. Success Better
  • Why College?
  • Why College?
  • New Page
PRHS KNIGHT WRITER

School spending:
​a student's perspective


By Elsa Andersson Maher

​I have a lot of questions about public school funding and how they are spent.
​

Why don’t we spend money on air conditioning? How much do we spend on student discipline, rather than the well being of students? What kind of efforts are directed at preventing students from dropping out?

I have helped out with my dad in warming centers in Auburn for the homeless. I have been subjected to rants about how difficult it is to get funding from neighboring towns and how little some people care about the homeless. I have always been very passionate about this issue and I am wondering how we can stop this from happening at its source. 

Every public school in the U.S.is required to comply with the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, passed in 1987, a federal law that provides federal money for homeless shelter programs. This means every school system must have an employee who ensures that its schools follow the law. RSU 16 Superintendent Todd Sanders gave me some information about funding for McKinney-Vento students.  “The largest expense when it comes to homeless students is the cost of transportation,” said Mr. Sanders, noting that it is a combined effort between the towns inside the district where  the M-V students reside, and the school itself. The pilot funds set aside for this amounts to approximately $10,000 but this is mostly money set aside for emergencies. Other funds for homeless kids still require budget increases through higher taxes. 

According to the Institute of Children, M-V funds should be going towards not only transportation but basic school supplies, tutors and specialized academic support and training for teachers. I have not gone deep into the funding system, regulations or training, but from asking around, I couldn’t find a teacher who knew something about this program. 

Of course, it costs a lot of money to run a school – taxpayer money. According to educationdata.org ,on average k-12 public schools in the United States receive $794.7 billion dollars annually. The RSU 16 budget  for 2024-25 which ands around $29,329,077. 

Would you be surprised to hear that our school is getting a budget cut of $759,000 ? It's not what you think, however.  After talking to Principal Erik Anderson, I learned that  these cuts are due to rising taxes. Due to inflation, all school budget item costs are rising, leading to pressure to accommodate taxpayers from three towns so that they can avoid drastically higher taxes (tax burdens carry extra weight for retired people).

 Fortunately, the budget and finance managers in our school district work hard to keep the status quo in terms of tax burden. This means  keeping everything that might need to be replaced either fixed up or maintained.  Keeping a tight budget also means there is not enough left to accommodate new after -chool programs, sports teams, etc. Still, we are lucky to have things such as projectors without needing those extra funds. 

If you’re like me you might be wondering, how can we use funds within the standard  operating budget in a more useful manner? Creating more funding would obviously be amazing for the school, but from what I've learned there is no way to do that without raising taxes. No one wants that, right? Just from observing, there are a few things I can think of that the school might not need to spend money on. These things are vape detectors which, assuming the school doesn't get a discount, is $8,917.93 for the model in our bathrooms.

 Another issue that is raising concerns for citizens: the schools are asking for another $10.2 million to replace those furnaces. This is something that all homeowners are familiar with. Something that is so important and expensive as a furnace that needs replacing at any point requires saving ahead of time. 

Overstaffing is also something I've noticed. Remember I am not a budget expert. Yet I have been bewildered at the amount of adults walking the halls, whether they're helping teachers or are there for any other reason. Helping those with learning disabilities is very important, but witnessing three different people walk in to make sure one of my friends with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is doing their work is mind boggling to me. 

​We should be paying teachers well, but having multiple teachers pressuring the same kid to do school work doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Again, I am neither a teacher, administrator or a budget expert. Keep in mind, however, that all these adult voices, however well intended, make some students feel controlled and small.

If we were to maintain our funding “status quo,” the school budget is sufficient to help all kids, if the funding is  used in a more sustainable way.

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