UIL sponsors stay proactive after budget cut in half

In past years, the UIL academic budget was $10,000.
This year, it is only $5,000.
“Funding has been a problem at the state level and now it’s trickling down,” Rider UIL coordinator and Literary Criticism sponsor Sandra Scheller said. “We’re not the only ones who have to do this.
Previously the team would go on two out of town meets a year. This year, they may only get one.
“Our best competition is out of town, and we can’t afford it,” Scheller said.
Physics sponsor Patrick Tempelmeyer thinks the change won’t help their chances at state.
“We should have an incredibly strong team,” Tempelmeyer said. “It would be better if we could go on those meets, though. Plus, it cuts some of the fun out of being on the team.”
Not only can they not afford meets, practice materials are also expensive.
“Lit Crit costs $250 just for one event,” Scheller said. “We have $500 total.”
To help with costs, different departments are pitching in for practice materials.
“They’re helping as much as they can, but their budgets were also cut,” Scheller said.
In order to offset the cuts, the sponsors are doing fundraisers such as the “Celebrity Scoop Night” at Maggie Moo’s that was held on Oct. 26.
“We’re trying to be proactive,” Scheller said,” but I don’t know how this can do anything but hurt.”

State budget cuts force school cuts

Due to the rising country deficit, the Texas state education budget has been cut down forcing the district to lower their budget as well.
At Rider, six positions were lost, though some of those faculty members were just shifted around.
There were three phases in the staff reduction process. Phase one was simply the removal of low-quality teachers.
“We didn’t have to lose any teachers [in phase one] because Rider has all high-quality teachers,” principal Judy McDonald said.
Phase two was about class sizes.
“The district says that all classes should be 10-15 people,” McDonald said. “Since we’re still scheduling, those numbers are not accurate.”
Phase three came down to saving money.
“Two positions had to be cut,” McDonald said. “They can be restored if the budget turns out to be nicer to education.”
To assist the district in reaching a solution to the budget crisis, a 26-member team was established. The Budget Action Committee met to discuss possible cuts to save money and submitted their report to the district. Among the possibilities were options from encouraging teachers to conserve electricity by turning the lights off more often to selling unused land.
Math teacher Stephanie Mullens is one of the members of the committee.
“I was happy to serve, but I knew it was going to be a tough job,” Mullens said. “It was heart-wrenching, we knew people were going to lose jobs.”
“26 people were chosen [for the committee],” Mullens said. “They tried to pick from all different areas: teachers, secretaries, maintenance, teachers.”
The committee was divided into five groups: curriculum and instruction, extracurricular, personnel, student support and support areas.
“My area was support areas,” Mullens said. “We looked at facilities, busing, utilities, etc.”
To help the committee with their recommendations, surveys were sent to faculty across the district.
“[They] could talk about their areas and what they wanted to keep or cut,” Mullens said.
While the committee was proposing the cuts, they had to divide them into priorities and whether they were long-term or short-term.
“You can’t not fix roofs, but it might be put off for a year or two,” Mullens said.
McDonald believes that the cuts at Rider are over with.
“The budget is balanced for this year, unless there is some increase,” McDonald said. “We are preparing for a worst case scenario.”
Since about 12 phase three positions have already been reinstated, Mullens believes, “it doesn’t look like a worst cast scenario.”
McDonald doesn’t think that the students of Rider will see a major difference next year.
“The biggest would be increased class sizes,” McDonald said. “[Also] not offering some electives and combining similar classes. We would still have the classes, but they wouldn’t be as specific as we previously offered.”
In Foreign Language department head and Spanish 2 teacher Ethan Shaw’s opinion, bigger class sizes can negatively affect students’ learning.
“I have a class with 36 kids and 26 desks,” Shaw said. “We can’t get desks and that’s this year. It will be interesting to see the seating arrangement.”
Though the Budget Action committee made the proposals, it is up to the Board what goes into effect.
“Everything was strictly recommendations,” Mullens said. “We had no power. All cuts come from the Board of Trustees, not Dr. Kazanas or Dr. Powers.”

UIL Budget Funding

In a budget crunch year, the district’s UIL teams were unable to travel to as many practice competitions as in previous years.

“We’re taking our first trip soon,” Sandra Scheller, Literary Criticism and Ready Writing coach, said. “We’re taking about half the team and it will cost around $2,500.”

This year, and last year, the UIL budget was $10,000.

“I took over last year and it was $10,000,” Schelller said. “The year before, I believe they had more.”

The prices of things and inflation both have a part in the UIL budget.

“The way they determine how much we get also changed,” Scheller said. “We used to request an amount, now, they just assign it.”

Scotty Coppage, Debate and Oral Interpretation coach, believes this issue hurts the students the most.

“Money is tight everywhere, not just in the schools,” Coppage said. “When there is less money to do the things we need to do, it hurts the program and the students lose out the most.”

Mary Beth Lee, Journalism coach, believes not traveling can cause a lack of team spirit.

“We don’t form a team bond which sometimes can be the difference between winning or losing,” Lee said. “When you don’t travel, you don’t get to know each other.”

Not only does it prevent students from getting to know each other, it also prevents students from seeing people they will actually be competing against.

“We don’t see anyone we actually compete against in this area,” Lee said. “We have to travel to Dallas to see our actual competition.”

Lynda Cannedy, Accounting and Computer Applications coach, makes a sports analogy to further explain. “Imagine a sports team that had to go straight to district without any preparation or competition,” Cannedy said. “That’s basically what UIL academics are being asked to when there is no money for out-of-town competition. Our students can’t be as prepared as they need to be without a good competitive schedule.”

Lost Textbooks Create Budget Strain

Last year, lost textbooks accounted for $10,000 of school debt, and the school is still not finished paying for the problem.

“We lost a lot of books last year,” assistant principal Peter Braveboy said. “Before, many seniors failed to turn in their books.”

Now, the school has a new policy. The school will not provide students with their transcripts if they have book fines, and many teachers have regular book checks.

“Book checks reduce the number of lost books, and with the budget strain, we cannot afford to take the money away from the general fund to pay for these lost books,” Braveboy said. “If you think you lost your book, you can pay for it, and if you find the book within 60 days, you can get all your money back. We can do payment plans if the student needs to; they will just have to pay monthly, instead of in one lump sum.”

This new plan, Braveboy said, should greatly lower the “number of lost books.”

“I advise all student who have a one semester class to turn in their books after the first semester,” Braveboy said. “We don’t want to make students pay for these books, but we have to.”