Another enlightened post from Mikala Woodward:
Some of the gaps we are asked to fill are things you might consider “extras” but that are essential to our school as we know it: without our half-time Environmental Science / Garden Coordinator our award-winning Garden program — integrated into the science curriculum at every grade level — could not function. Other holes in the budget are simply maddening: the district only provides us with 5.6 middle school teachers, for instance. How we are meant to serve six classrooms of students with 5.6 teachers is beyond me — I suppose we could send one of the teachers home at lunch every day and lock all 65 6th graders in the gym for the rest of the afternoon? Last year $25K of our PTSA budget went to fill out the sixth middle school teacher’s salary, and another $30K paid the Environmental Science teacher. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is for our amazing group of committed parents to work all year raising all that money — Annual Fund letters and the Plant Sale and a Jog-a-thon and the Spring Auction — just to put a teacher in each classroom.
Please read the whole thing.
