You know what they say about bad bargains… sometimes they’re just not worth the money you save. That seems to be what’s happening in Riverside California, where, in order to save $2 million dollars a year, a brand new school, Hillcrest High School, is being left empty.
California is in a serious budget crunch, there is no denying it. And, unfortunately, like many places in this country California is willing to let school budgets be among the first to suffer from cut backs.
Wendell Tucker of the Alvord Unified School District told USA Today that the district’s $130 million operating budget had been cut by $25 million.
“When the California budget goes down and income in the state goes down, funding to K-through-12 education goes with it,” Tucker told USA Today. “We made a number of budget adjustments. Right now, we simply are out of adjustments, and it’s not feasible … to open this school.”
That’s a steep cut, for sure, but considering the fact that the district is being forced to shell out $1 million to keep the school buildings from deteriorating, wouldn’t it make sense to make an effort to dig up the other two and get some kids out of the over crowded high school that the new buildings were meant to relieve and at least be getting some bang for the city’s educational buck? Kickstart.com has helped many an artist raise that kind of money – maybe it’s time to start a little grassroots fundraising for local schools.
According to Alvord school board member Ben Johnson, the decision not to open Hillcrest was a choice between laying people off and keeping the school closed. “Choosing between people losing jobs and opening the school site, I couldn’t in my mind justify one more person out of a job,” he said.
A tough dilemma for sure. What do you think? How should administrators facing these kind of choices prioritize their shrinking budgets?
