School books are in short supply in Sisters

When dollars are short, it's important to have sensible priorities. In a public school district, where different parents want different things for their children of differing abilities, setting priorities is a complicated task.

A parent walked into The Nugget a few weeks ago, wanting to know why his child had to share a Spanish book. Apparently there are Spanish books for only about half the seventh and eighth graders taking Spanish this year.

"This means our child has to travel in order to share the book. It takes time out of our busy family life. They tie up the telephones, it seems like for hours, if they can't get together," the parent fumed.

"There is an additional expense of running a taxi service. Traveling (to share a Spanish book) takes time away from other homework assignments that the kids don't have time to do because they are too busy traveling."

Each copy of Voces Y Vistas, the Spanish text used by the seventh and eighth grade, costs $33.77, according to school Business Manager Earl Armbruster. There are about 110-120 seventh and eighth graders using it.

There are about 60 books available, not counting a classroom set acquired this year.

It would cost $2,026 to buy the other 60 books needed so every student could have one.

But the shortage is not just of Spanish books, according to Sisters Middle/High School Principal Dennis Dempsey. His school is also short of textbooks in other subjects, such as seventh grade language arts and science.

Dempsey said he had $17,000 in the textbook budget for this year and $30,000 in requests from staff. He has spent $21,000, with the $4,000 over the budget coming out of supplies.

"We can't spend any more or I won't have any paper for the copy machine," Dempsey said.

At the same time, the Sisters School District did have $15,225 in the budget to pay referees and umpires for the co-curricular sports program.

Which points out the problem in setting priorities. The parent of the student taking Spanish believes that too much of the district's precious resources are soaked up by co-curricular programs and on computers and software.

And not enough is spent on books.

Other parents believe that if it wasn't for organized sports, they would have trouble keeping their kids in school.

Dempsey says bluntly that co-curricular activities are an integral part of the school experience and cost only $150,000 out of a $5.5 million district budget.

"There is a study out that shows the only correlation between successful adults and high school education was participation in co-curricular activities," Dempsey said.

School Board chairman Bill Reed agrees whole-heartedly with Dempsey on the need for co-curricular activities.

"We are talking about educating the whole child," Reed said. For this, Reed said, co-curricular activities are a necessary part of the curriculum.

Spanish teacher Janis Quiros pointed out that this is the first year there hasn't been enough books for her students, and the primary reason is that enrollment of those taking Spanish jumped significantly for seventh and eighth graders.

As opposed to the 110-120 in seventh and eighth grade, Quiros said that only 19 students are taking Spanish III.

Part of the reason is the new policy of requiring initial mastery of a foreign language for all students, not just the college-bound.

Quiros said she is very frugal, and would not support the acquisition of a large number of new Spanish books if the district should decide that not every student needed to take a foreign language.

Principal Dempsey sees more students, and more textbook shortages, coming in the near future.

"It (the current textbook shortage) does not include the 50 to 70 new kids we'll see next year, nor the textbook adoption cycle," he said.

The textbook adoption cycle is the period in which textbooks are reviewed and new books are adopted for a given subject, such as science.

"The only way we will get the textbooks we need is by passage of the bond," Dempsey said.

Textbooks is one of the items included in the $5.5 million bond that will go before voters in May.

Was the decision to send $15,225 to Central Oregon Officials for football, volleyball and basketball referees when there aren't enough textbooks in the classrooms a good one?

Board chair Reed questions whether it is fair to single out any particular expenditure, such as the $15,225 for referees, and pit that against other budget items or shortfalls.

Dempsey emphasizes, "if you don't have referees, you don't have events. If you are going to have basketball or wrestling, you are committing to have referees."

Dempsey also said that over the last few years, the Sisters district has involved many more volunteers in being ticket takers and supervising cocurricular events, jobs that use to be paid.

As to particular spending decisions, Dempsey acknowledged that "not everybody is going to be happy. We have requests from science and Spanish and athletics. My staff meets on requests. We discuss where our priorities are. I come down and make the hard decisions. I have to balance the needs of the whole school program," Dempsey said.

But based on Dempsey's comments, it would appear that the budget generally reflects the priorities of the staff and their building administrator.

Staff often knows going into this process that "the funds are frozen or not there for buying textbooks, so we do the best we can with what we have," as one teacher put it.

One member of the budget committee, who preferred anonymity, suggested that sometimes during the budget process school officials would refuse an offer of additional dollars allocated to one area "because they knew it would have to come out of some other program."

This year, 1995-96, Dempsey said there was no increase in the budget from the year before.

"If the board gave us, say an additional $50,000, I would allocate that to the various departments in a lump sum based on their initial requests and let them spend it where they think it is needed most," he said.

The current budget process for the 1996-97 school year is just beginning. Dempsey says the high school has gone from "400 to 550 students in three years. Next year we will need three more teachers. I won't know until June whether I am going to have the money for teachers and textbooks."

It is unlikely he will have money for either, let alone both, unless the state is able to give the district more money. At this point, revenues are expected to be about $4,000 per student. It does not appear that is likely to increase substantially.

Even if it does, the increase is likely to be absorbed by salary increases.

In the meantime, Spanish teacher Marty Everett acknowledges that not having enough Spanish books changes the way he can teach Spanish.

"It does hamper the student's ability to complete homework because of schedule incompatibilities. I don't assign as much homework as I would if everybody had books," Everett said.