Earlier this month, I received letters from Kellie Christensen’s fourth-grade class at Meadow Ridge Elementary. The letters were the result of their civics curriculum, whereby the students were studying the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, along with Washington state laws.
The student teacher, Joanne Barber, helped the students understand the importance of our democracy and the rights of Americans to have their voices heard. As a result, the students wanted to make certain their voices were heard regarding potential budget cuts and the impact on their school.
In response to their letters, I chose to visit the classroom. Having read each of their letters and then bringing them with me, I was better able to respond to them individually.
From their letters, I learned that these students wanted to understand the district’s budget challenges. In particular, they were concerned about the fate of physical education, music and their own teacher. I decided to use an analogy in helping students understand the budget challenges we have in the Kent School District.
Here’s the story I used:
Let’s pretend your mom is sick. She gives you a dollar and asks you to go to the store to buy soup and two cough drops. Your mom also says that if you have any money left over you can buy a candy bar.
When you get to the store, you find that a can of soup that is on sale for 75 cents. You also find that you can buy two cough drops for 20 cents. Then, you see that a candy bar is 25 cents.
What do you do?
With the exception of one student, all agreed that they would spend the dollar on the soup and cough drops.
I used this story to help students understand the challenge we face as a school district. While there are many excellent programs in the Kent School District that make an important difference for students, there isn’t enough money to pay for all of them. The result is that we have to make difficult decisions and focus on the district programs that are the most vital – the soup and the cough drops in my story.
Regretfully, until our financial picture changes, we must put the other programs aside.
Meadow Ridge Principal Bonnie Wong helped with the discussion by asking the students to consider the same scenario, but suppose their mom could only give them 90 cents. Mrs. Wong asked the students to consider how making decisions becomes even more difficult in such a situation.
And this is precisely what has happened in our district.
As we have been working through this process, community support has been especially helpful. The Community Work Sessions in February provided the school board with excellent insight as to the priorities of our community.
Of course, for many, many years this community’s support has been an important foundation for the Kent School District team and our efforts to provide an excellent education for our students.
Working together as a team, we will get through this challenge.
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