The district has a massive budget shortfall it needs to make up because COVID-19 funds that had been covering the looming funding cliff ran out.The district says it has no choice because it has lost thousands of students in the last five years. And since that’s how the state funds schools, the district is out of money.
PTAs will now be expected to raise even more money from families to try and keep things like art, music and PE classes, something many PTAs are already doing. And guess what happens next? The district loses tens of thousands more students and they must again cut and maybe close more schools. And on goes the cycle until what?say they fixed school funding when the State Supreme Court ordered them to do so under the McCleary ruling. What lawmakers really did was make things worse. They capped levies so bigger districts get less money. They changed the definition of basic education to exclude even things as crucial as nurses.