As a parent with children enrolled in our school district, I like many other parents have overlooked the hardships we truly face here in small Clarendon. The situation was not brought to my attention until basketball season rolled out the red carpet. I was appalled to find out that our athletic students were sitting on our buses eating sandwiches after out of town games. This is all grades 7th through varsity. The original problem I have is in November of 2011 the budget cut was around eight percent, but now the school website is approximately seven percent. That’s a big gap when you’re dealing with the details here, folks. So here are my nuts and bolts about this year’s budget cuts.
We are spending outstanding amount of money on rubbish. I want to point out that since we got these new computers that our student’s grades have dropped immensely. Why was that new technology building built when we had computer labs available for every campus? The computers purchased for students and teachers are nothing more than a Facebook and music frenzy in and out of school. The technology building attempts to block these sites, but guess what? It is not effective so I get to pay $40 per child to the school so my children can have a personal computer to carry around to play games on and we still have to buy BOOKS. These computers double the teachers work and take away learning time. So in all, with the budget cuts and the amazing sandwiches our athletes eat that are highly nutritious and embarrassing at the same time, we have no worries about logging on to Facebook or downloading the new hot songs. Our students can’t eat out, but every team we have played feeds their students.
The budget cuts affected all areas except central administration, and this could be due to our snappy new state of the art technology headquarters. While I am pointing out many facts here, I want to say the next time we go over budgets, as a parent, I want to be informed of the seriousness so I can get some parents together and start the fiscal year’s fund for all UIL students. As a parent, when I read the published budget I am seeing a lot of cuts – except for the central administration inflation. What a curious thing. The technology building and computers ate our lunch… literally.
If more budget cuts arise, the technology will not matter because we will be using candles.
The second financial fallacy I would like to shed some light on is the request for the iPads for city administration. I’m not sure which one I prefer to lean into here, the sandwiches or the ability to have numerous applications at your finger tips when who you need to speak with has a cell phone. I have been very humored at the small city vs. county trash wars because of the financial situation of our city. I have also enjoyed the pothole and brown water complaints, but I believe personally this iPad request topped the cake. Our trash water and sewer fees rise continually, and we obviously do not have money for luxuries. I thought to myself: “We can’t even feed dogs we catch, how are we going to WiFi our city to success?” Thank God our aldermen are aware of this.
Shanna Herndon,
Clarendon
As a former Clarendon resident and a teacher myself, I would just like to say that I’m proud of CISD for continuing to push what’s current when it comes to education. The goal of most districts and teachers is to prepare students to be college and career ready. By providing students and teachers with current technology, CISD is allowing students to be prepared. Yes, I agree that students and faculty probably do not always use their laptops for school related things, however, I’m guessing that if you walked into a classroom where students were using their computers, you would see students actively working and not browsing Facebook. We currently do not have 1:1 computers at my school, but we are moving in that direction next year. What students do on their computers at school should be aligned with school policy on use. If you’re concerned with that, then you have bigger concerns than “technology eating lunches.”
When you talk about budget cuts and funding, I’m assuming that CISD works along the same lines as my district. There are certain allotted funds that can only be used for specific things. So, yes, some things may be cut, but you should make sure that you know what you’re talking about when you say that the school is cutting money in some areas and using them for technology. The school most likely funded the “snappy new state of the art technology headquarters” through grants or bonds. I doubt that it came out of the year’s fiscal budget.
Are you positive that students are eating “sandwiches” on all trips? What about those that are far? I can remember taking school packed lunches on elementary field trips and most junior high trips as well (including sporting events). Clarendon’s lucky that their students even still get to take trips at all.
Face it – education budgets are being cut across Texas. Be thankful that Clarendon students are going to be college and career ready. Isn’t that what matters most in the scheme of things?