Unemployment Rates Up To 10.6% in Oregon

By Hannah Jacobson

Is the Beaverton School District budget being used for the things it should be?

BEAVERTON, OR - As a new school year comes to an end, teachers have to worry what will happen to their jobs. Last year, due to budget cuts, the Beaverton School District had to make some minor and some major changes to the staff. Some minor changes were switching what position a teacher would teach. But a major change was having a teacher get laid off. From Oregonlive.com, I found that the Beaverton School District lost $7.4 million from their $315 million budget. Because of this, travel, supplies, teacher training and hiring had to be cut. But the school parties continue.

            “I am like, seriously furious. Our parents works their butts off to pay taxes for school, just so they can buy parties,” an anonymous student says. “I feel that the school could be using their money more appropriately.” Because of the cuts in the budget, schools can no longer afford as much school supplies as they used to be able to, but many students feel that the school is spending their money on useless things instead of educational purposes. What useless items are they spending the budget on? A few students from Stoller Middle School report that they keep seeing new plant life and flowers appearing outside. I myself have seen them, too.

            During the school year, a teacher told her art class several times that we would not ever be getting new supplies. As I was interviewing students from that class now, each student had brand new supplies. It makes me wonder how much money was spent on paint instead of books or paper. How does the school get most of its money? From parents paying taxes. I am sure that most parents would rather have money being spent on books and other educational purposes.

            A big issue at Stoller Middle School is that instead of lockers, we have S-Cubes. These are open cubbies and items could easily be stolen, and they are. Students constantly report missing items and seeing people steal from other people’s S-Cubes. However, there are lockers in the gym changing room. When people bring clothes for gym class, they usually bring them home after the class or week is over. Many lockers are being unused. Instead, we should have S-Cubes in the gym room, and lockers for our school supplies.

            I asked 10 students what would be helpful for them in school, and 9/15 of them said lockers, 3/15 said paper, and 3/15 said they don’t care. So, I also asked students what ways we could make more money for our school. Jade said: “Fundraisers or sell things we don’t need.” Another student agreed with fundraisers, and also added that we should save up money for better computers. The connection is slow and the computers constantly have problems. If we had working computers in the first place, the school wouldn’t have to constantly waste money fixing them.

            Recently, Stoller Middle School participated in Earth Week. During this, the whole school dimmed their lights for a week, saving money on their electrical bill. If the school was to do this for a whole year, just imagine the money they could save. I also think that paper should be used more sparingly, and scraps should be reused. It saves money and saves trees at the same time. At any other time that we had enough school money and extra, parties and decorations would be no problem. But at a time like this when Oregon has made $166 million cuts in schools, money should be used much more sparingly and well thought out.

            As I interviewed students asking them what we should be spending our school money on, most of them said field trips. Now, at a time like this when paper is scarce, I think school money should be spent on what they absolutely need it for, and if there is extra, then a field trip would be no problem. On the other hand, students could each pay an equal amount towards field trips, and then be able to go. One last effective strategy to save money would be to cut school days. Now, this affects students and teachers. Students, because they get less education, and teachers because they get less pay. The economy is already bad enough, and even a dollar an hour less for their pay could affect them greatly.

            So the question is, what now? Most likely, teachers will have to be laid off and have their jobs switched around again next year. If someone loses his or her job, it is almost impossible to get a new one in this economy. In another article by Meir Rinde titled ‘Teacher protests against job cuts’, it states: “The district [Trenton] is planning to lay off more than 400 employees, including 177 cafeteria workers who could be rehired under a privatization plan.” On a graph from Qualityinfo.org, it shows how rapidly the unemployment rates are increasing in Oregon. As of April 2010, the rate is 10.6%, whereas in 2008, the rates were only at 5.2%. This is nearly double the rate, and by the looks of it, this rate will increase even more.

            This is not a small problem, but rather a quite large one. As students and teachers at Stoller Middle School, we can all make an effort in saving money. Dimming the lights in halls and classrooms, saving food and not wasting it, and not wasting but reusing paper seem like small things to do, but they leave a big impact. If everyone helps, we can make a difference.