Journal # 2

When it comes to school funding’s, I think NY lacks a lot. Many schools seem to be suffering with their budgets which have caused an increased number in layoffs and cut backs. I believe this is a big issue and it is only going to get worse if something isn’t done. I remember growing up and hearing about all of these voting’s and budgets being passed, but I never really cared too much to figure out what it meant. Now that I am going to be a teacher I am realizing that these budgets are not always good news. My elementary school actually just underwent a huge change as well due to finical issues and state funding. We used to have two in my district and this year they decided to cut back and combined the schools. One elementary is universal prek-2^nd grade and the other one is 3^rd grade-5^th grade. This was to help save money and cut back on transportation cost as well as a few teachers. It was a big choice to make and it is so weird to see this happening, but my elementary schools lacks the funds that they need as well.

This isn’t only affecting my area, its affecting everywhere. I feel that schools don’t get much support from the government and that makes things very difficult. I didn’t realize how much money was needed to run a school until I started taking my education courses and learning about these situations. So much finance is needed and if the school cannot receive it, or raise it, then they cannot function. With that being said taxes are going up and they are going to continue to go up so that schools can stay in action. For the people who live in these areas, they are going to be forking more money over every year to help these schools. This is going to affect me someday because I will eventually have my own house and have to pay taxes. The scary thing about this is that, they may be ten times higher when it’s my time to start the process.

As an educator this means so much to me. When schools can’t make budgets, layoffs start to occur. As a future teacher that is something that I should be fully considered about. That is my career that will be on the line and that is something huge. Budgets play such a huge role for teachers and I believe that a lot of people don’t really take the time to understand that. My salary, my job, my life could all be gone within a day if the school that I am working for decides they can’t afford to stay open. In many cases too, the newer teachers who haven’t received tenure yet are the ones to go. That is scary to think about and it makes me very nervous for my future. These issues with money and funding are just going to keep increasing the more this state and country goes into debt. I just hope that when I become and educator, something more is done to help these schools stay open. It is truly sad to see how many schools need to close or even rearrange (combine) just so they can stay open.

I believe that right now these issues are going to continue to be hard. I feel like it is going to take more than a couple of years to get these issues straightened out. School budgets are tough to come by, especially when they need so much money and people living in those districts aren’t for their taxes rising. I know that I would be voting against my taxes rising if a school board wanted to higher them, especially if I was living where my mother and I live today. I just feel like so many issues schools have and are still facing is based around budgets. As a future teacher I know that this will be one of my concerns and it will affect my everyday life. If I ever happened to be a teacher that needed to be laid off this very well could affect my teaching ability for my last few days. However, I would try my hardest to make sure that I stay professional for my student’s sake.