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.”

Microsoft Office Testing Provided

Rider students taking Mrs. Cannedy’s BCIS or Coach Bobbit’s BIMM class have the opportunity to take the Microsoft Office Certification Test.

The test benefits the student by helping them prove expertise in Microsoft Office programs, which is an absolute necessity for many schools and businesses.

“We’ve designed our class to prepare our students for the test,” Mrs. Cannedy said. “We started this two years ago, the first year we had Microsoft 2003, and we had four students pass. We upgraded to Microsoft 2007 and we had 10 students pass. This year we’re already up to 25 students passing.”

There are 16 students who passed on the Microsoft Word test, and nine that have passed Power Point.

“Last semester we tested for Microsoft Word, but this semester we’re concentrating more one Power Point,” Cannedy said.

Rider is an official Certiport  testing site. There is only one other testing site in Wichita Falls.

“The American College of Business gives the test for $100,” Mrs. Cannedy said. “The students who take it here are getting a really good deal.”

Sophomore Natalie Guarnieri passed the certification test.

“It really easy,” Guarnieri said.”Like it was mostly the things we learned in class all semester.”

Any student at Rider can take the test, whether in a computer class or not.

“They would just have to study for it,” Mrs.Cannedy said.