Letters to the Editor

Funding schools
Editor: At last Tuesday’s special school board meeting, it became crystal clear that WUSD faces significant financial challenges that threaten the quality of the educational experiences and opportunities of our community’s youth. Amidst the uncertainties posed by the state’s revenue shortfall and the Governor’s budget constraints, not to mention the federal “fiscal cliff,” it is clear enough at this point that WUSD will have to continue slashing expenses in order to maintain a balanced operating budget. Measure B bond funds are for facilities and can’t be used for operational expenses.  
At some point as a community we must ask ourselves if we can do more in order to maintain excellence in our local public school system, since our schools truly reflect who we are as a community. The question is tough. We just passed Proposition 30, but it maintains the status quo, thereby avoiding radical slashing of education funding throughout the state. The present status quo at WUSD is a slow but steady slide toward insolvency. There simply is not enough revenue coming into the district to maintain the current educational excellence being offered.
Home-to-school transportation has already been cut. What’s next? Sports, libraries, music, arts, health benefits for teachers and their families, larger class sizes, students leaving the district? Unless we as a community do something, we’ll continue to see a cut here, a slash there, along a path leading to a mediocre school system, which diminishes our community as a whole. I don’t propose a solution, but do argue that it is an issue we must together begin to consider and ultimately solve.
David Harrison
Windsor