School districts face budget cuts

The Sugar-Salem board of Trustees met Thursday to discuss the financial state of the Sugar-Salem school district.

According to Alan Dunn, district superintendent the yearly budget has been cut by approximately 1 million dollars this year.

These cuts will mainly effect the funding used for extracurricular funding.
At the meeting on Thursday Dunn announced the district will be asking for a $450,000 supplement to their depleted budget.

These cuts are to be statewide. School districts in Idaho are struggling with a 7.5 percent reduction across the board in Idaho’s school budgets.

According to Idaho Education Association president Sherri Wood, these cuts are making it even tougher for some of the states teachers to earn a living wage.
The Idaho education system is not the only one coping with slashed budgets, 23,500 Californian educators were handed pink slips in the last two years, and the Kansas City school district will be closing the doors of 28 of its 61 schools.

Diane Ravitch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, expect the budget cuts to damage the education system.

"I think the budget cuts will devastate the schools at the same time that we expect them to raise standards and improve performance," Ravitch wrote in an e-mail to AOL News. "We will see larger classes, fewer programs to engage students in the arts and physical education, fewer advanced courses."