My F'n School....

[P8ntballPlayer]

Well, I go to Struthers High School. It is a great school, very new. Has everything; a great gym, new computers, a library, numerous computer and science labs, weight lifting room, all new desks, it just looks great. I love it, but these things came with a price....

Now my school is in dept by like a $1,000,000 (not exagerating) so we tried to pass a levy to get my school some money. This would cost property owners like $25-$100 every year. Since the old folks dont like shoving out some money for the youth; the levy didint pass. What makes it worse is that most of the old people that voted no do NOT EVEN OWN PROPERTY! So, this tax would not even effect them!!!!

Now 23 teachers are going to be let go. And all the classes that are not needed for graduation are going to be cut. Classes are going to be jammed with 35-40 people pre class. And since these extra classes are going to be cut, it will be harder to get into college and I will end up apying to re-take these classes that I could of gotten for free.

Also, most of my friends (including the gf) are now moving. So to top it off I loose most of my friends. Ok, I think that rant is over, Im just so ticked.

[Vashthestampede]

For your school to be 1,000,000 in debt someone must have screwed up big time and either ran overbudget on the construction or didn't plan ahead adequately. As the debts were mounting they should have been dealt with. I'd blame those whose fault it is that the school is in debt.

[MNewman15]

Somebody's school took a loan from the mob, and i think i know who's it was . I'm kidding around but man that sucks....My school is crappy and stuff(Melrose High) but the classes aren't bad the teachers are pretty good..for example my Italian 2 Class has only 15 kids in it with a great teacher so its all good....good luck with your situation man and I'm sorry for you

Mourning
~:NewmaN:~

[RandyA]

and i thought my school was bad (when i was there )... we didnt have AC for most of the hot days and we were at something like 120% capacity... but my education didnt suffer the way yours is... how many years do you have left...man that sucks and i hope things work out... is your school going to try fund raisers? i know thats alot of money to raise, but somethings better than nothing

[jestertls]

Sounds like it is time for some new school board members. They should have had the finances worked out before they built a school and then try passing a levy.

Sorry guys, but being a tax payer I would have voted Nay as well. One, it shows how foolish the governing body is, building a school but not even having a way to pay for it. I mean it sounds like they didnt even have a plan other then to try to get a levy or bond passed. That is just dumb. People are not got to vote to raise their taxes. Property taxes are high to begin with and depending on where you live, it can be just insane. The government takes enough money, but need to learn to manage, prioritise, and distribute it better.

[Millslane]

this is not abnormal for schools all across the counrty. in my area, i would wager that 40% of the school systems are in trouble like this. its not just with new schools, but with the old ones as well.
however, i will say that 80% of the new schools built in the pass 5-7 years are in trouble, or have closed already.

I am going on my 5th year out of HS, and when i was a senior, my HS as well as the city's entire school district got into money problems.

We have a nuclear power plant in the town, right off Lake Michigan in Zion, IL.

the property taxes off the plant gave the HS 19 or the 20 million dollars it needed each year to operate fully. we had just about everything there. the school's 30 years old, but still in really nice shape.

5 years ago, the power plant was shut down becuase it wasn't being ran effecient enough. and then goes 19/20 million to operate just the HS alone.

they worked out a deal where they wouldn't loose all the money right away, but it would deperciate over the next few years, giving the city time to try and expand the incomming tax revenue to support the HS. more home, buisness, ect.

but they still needed to pass a levy to raise taxes each year by a small amount, to compensate for whatevers left. luckily it passed on the first try, and we have alot of old people, but its old people who grew up intown and went to our HS and the former one. we have lots of school pride here.

the elderly can actually have their taxes stopped, so its not raised. and then once they "move on" or go into a home, when the y sell the house, the back taxes will be paid.


I really don't understand the folks who vote no for these things. its the school systems, we need them, and we need them to run and full tilt to give out kids the best. i know citys who have forseen the problem comming for years and have tried to get a levy passed, but cannot, and now, the schools are shutting down programs or shutting down all together, and property value is going down.

i hope this trend stops soon

[Millslane]

Jester, in some cases, voting no would be an option, like where the school messes up with a budget or the like. you would think, why should i pay for their screw up?

but when it comes down to it, you have to vote yes anyways. as long as its not going to break you. its the schools, its where your kids go to learn. who wantes their kids to recieve and second class education with second class programs and experiances, just because enough people didn't want to pay the tiny tax expense.

I have also seen where communities are growing so fast with homes, and so many children swarming into a "desired" area to live, that they have no choice but to build another school.
the problem with this is becuase the property tax collected from just homes usually isn't enough to cut it. you need buisnesses. stores, restraunts, malls, something that takes a larger tax hit to pay out.

its really sad, i have seen school completly cut sports, art, music and almost every other program that isn't required to get into college. and you know what happend to alot of those kids? some didn't get into college becuase they couldn't get their scholarship in Art or music. or they were never scouted to play football at a division 1 school. the students feel like second class becuase they no longer have the same access and same chance at what all the other students in teh counrty get. its not fair, no matter whose fault it is.

sports also is a great place to motivate students to keep grades up. schools get grants and rewards for good GPA's and high test scores. it also keeps kids off the streets where we all know what can happen and can go on there.

I'm from a city atmosphere and all the horror stories that are told are true and do happen.

I don't know, i just want my kids to have the same oppourtunity as i did, and that the other students have.

just my 2 bps

[Ety]

Sorry to hear about that. So far in the last year my high school is being built onto and we got a new 3-4-5 school they finished in September. Our schools kinda the opposite they have way to much money with no control. I think property taxes has gone up around 10-20% for it. I know its nothing compared to whats going on at your school but our school is so stupid with money and I feel like ranting.
Rant warning:They cheaped out of crappy desks, faucets stuff like that, but spent $5,000 per class room for "Smart Boards" that are just touch screens for projectors then of course you need LCD TVs in all the rooms, but none of it works because we also apparently need video on demand, from servers in the library that isn't going to be done for 6 months so there are no whiteboards in some rooms. We also needed 3 greenhouses for science, a 10k+ controller for the electrical in the physics room. While in the photography class I am taking they destroyed most of the stuff in the old photo room so we are stuck in the wood shop with the dark room consisting of a curtain in a closet, and it has one table for the equipment and we need shelfing in there to to keep empty boxes in so there is about 3 ft between them for 10 people to try and work in. /Rant

[LilBigMan]

Ha, heres my school (in the order I have them):

Spanish teacher- 78 year old women who dresses worse then the slutty girls in my grade

Math teacher- pot head ( < not exagerating) who doesnt know how many kids he has

Reading teacher- buddist who thinks hes a college ap teacher

Social Studies teacher- not enough room on here to talk about how wierd he is, but he's pretty cool

Band teacher- would prefer the percussion to not play, since we suck (except me) and we goof off so much

Gym teacher- the coolest teacher who I have/will ever have. He's funnier then anyone I've known, and would prefer to play hacky sack with us, then to break up the fights that are going on while we were supposed to play kick ball, theres a million more things I could say about him, but you guys wprobably wouldnt understand

Typing teacher- tapes his lessons and is going to sell them after he retirers for a cure for insomnia (no exageration either)

Science teacher- the only normal teacher, and he's real cool too

My school is the butt of all the jokes from the surounding towns, because we have a pretty bad school system, and the teachers and staff will be the first to tell you too, lol. When ever we say something that happenes in our school, like "the budget failed" (which it did) or (my teacher got fired because he was accused of rape" (which happened also) everyones always is like "well, thats a boonton education for ya"