Our country is having many financial troubles and it is affecting school districts very much. Budgets everywhere are being cut and schools have to sacrifice. There are many ideas that have been proposed for the budget cuts in School District 51. These ideas include cutting middle school sports or getting rid of busses. I don’t like these ideas. It’s not fair to students if they can’t play their favorite sports just because there’s no funding for it. And it’s not fair to parents if the busses are cancelled and the bus drivers would lose their jobs. There is not only a budget problem in the U.S. but also an unemployment issue, so while fixing one problem, it would just be affecting another. But there are other ideas that would save a lot of money and nobody would lose their jobs. Some ideas that have been nominated are taking an extra week over Christmas break or taking off a few days of the school year.
My favorite idea is having a longer school day and a shorter week. I think this solution would work better because most students and teachers wouldn’t mind a three day weekend…every week. If we extended a school day by an hour and half or two hours every day, the extra hours would add up to an extra day which could be taken out. Those extra two hours could be filled with classes like a mandatory study-hall or another elective or each class could be extended to fill the extra time.
The other major benefit of a short school week would be that it saves a lot of money. Think about lunch. A lunch at Friuta 8/9 cost $2.75 and about 500 kids get lunch every day. Now if you take out a day every week for a 36 week school year that saves about $49,500 a year, and the cost of groceries and pay for the lunch staff, that’s even more money saved. Other things the school wouldn’t have to pay for an extra day would be electricity, maintenance and fuel for the busses.