America’s Schools Hit Hard by the recession

Everyone everywhere is experiencing financial problems. Manteca Unified School District in California’s San Joaquin Valley is no exception.

There stands a proposed $14 million in budget cuts that will go into effect July 1, 2009. Acting District Superintendent Jason Messer will hold two meetings so that the public can hear more of the details regarding the cuts.

The board has completely filled up the $14 million in cuts, making the likelihood of all of them to go into effect that much greater. In deciding what to cut, the board– which consisted of teachers, administrators, and classified employees—considered five specific things:

-Budget cuts should not be made in the classroom
-Layoffs are a last resort
-A current hiring freeze is necessary
– All potential cuts will be analyzed appropriately
-The economic crisis is a state problem and the board supports more elasticity in allocating state funds in the local sector.

The $14 million in cuts comes with another $9.5 million in cuts that must be created this year. Some of those cuts are:

-Cutting the school year by up to five days
-Eliminating or reducing substitute teachers at the high schools.
-Conducting cleaning every other day, instead of every day.
-Eliminating high school transportation.
-Reducing the number of school psychologists.
-Eliminating lead speech therapist and lead psychologist. To keep up with the effects of the recession be a part of Employee Crossing

The idea that a daily cleaning of the bathrooms has become a luxury is surely a frightening one. And although they will have limited amounts of layoffs, hiring will be at a low.