Principal’s greeting

 by Jay Conroy, Principal, Corvallis High School 

 Budget update: Corvallis school district, like nearly every school district in this state, receives its financial base from state income tax distributions. When our state economy goes down, people

don’t make as much money and don’t pay as much in taxes. With limited alternatives, school districts must absorb the economic downturn. At this time, mid-March, without new sources of revenue we are looking at a projected budget shortfall at CHS of nearly $830,000 in our building alone for next year.

.... The district will be starting budget hearings in May and will propose a final budget in June. 

If we were to cut all of our supplies, books, office staff, classroom assistants, and field trips we would save roughly 1/6 of that shortfall (and volunteers, Ms. Wahl and I would be lost in delivering the service and educational environment that are needed to support the classroom).

We can start to cut teaching staff, each one averaging about $73,000 in savings (wages, insurance, benefits, etc.). And each staff cut at our school would cause the average class size to increase by about .75 student/ class. Finally, we can cut activities and athletics from district support and save our school budget about $310,000. (Of course we would either need to turn back to the community to help raise that sum for those activities to continue, or we could just not have drama, athletics, clubs, etc., and then we would watch students leave CHS for better schools or drop out of CHS because we no longer have those “hooks” that activities provide to keep many kids in school. Then we would face more cuts because our enrollment is down and we wouldn’t be receiving as much money from the state.)

What to do?  Become involved in your child’s educational future by getting informed; talk with legislators, local government representatives, school board members and budget committee members. It is our government and our educational system, not someone else’s. It’s our responsibility for our children.

Local funding options, fundraising, volunteering—those are all likely steps to be taken to fill the gap. Stay tuned and thanks in advance for your help.

And good things are still very much the norm at CHS. Our students performed exceptionally well these last few months in a variety of arenas—state math contests; robotics competition; drama presentations; vocalists; basketball, wrestling, swimming and ski athletes all represented us well. Students are working hard in classes and teachers are providing excellent opportunities to learn and grow. Thanks for parent support in all of these accomplishments. You are essential for students’ success.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has given us donations of money and time thus far this year. Your financial help has enabled us to backfill basic classroom needs. Your volunteer work has made our high school a very positive, caring place. We continue to hear that CHS reaches out in a kind way to all types of kids to help them tackle the challenges of education. Thank you, on behalf of our students and staff, for those kind words and critical support.