Students frustrated by funding crisis

Sisters High School students are worried about their school's finances and frustrated by what they see as inaction on the part of legislators to fix the school funding system.

Lindsey Warner and Jamie Cundiff, sophomores, joined seniors Matthew Adams and Megan Benton to assess the damage of continuing school budget cuts. The conversation soon turned to a recent visit to the school by District 54 Representative Ben Westlund.

Adams says initially he was glad when Westlund visited because he and his friends had many questions.

"But when we asked him what was going to be done about our teachers and programs being cut, he side-stepped our questions," Adams said. "When we repeated the questions, he ignored them or started blaming Democrats.

"I'm a Republican, but that guy was really frustrating," Adams said. "We're in real trouble when the people who can change things for the better won't act."

Westlund says he wasn't side-stepping questions --there just aren't simple answers.

"They wanted answers like pushing a button and making those problems disappear," he said. "I took time to explain what the causes of the state's problems are."

Westlund thinks some of those problems start close to home.

"Now, I don't know about Sisters' exact situation, but I believe that the school board was overly optimistic in their funding expectations," Westlund said.

Schools superintendent Steve Swisher said that the district budgeted "based on the best numbers that were available at the time."

However, he noted, "it wasn't conceived" that nearly $50 million of the state appropriation would be tied up in targeted grants, very few of which were available to Sisters.

Westlund acknowledged that many statewide factors have combined to pinch schools.

"It's a fact that the increase in the state prison, social program, and student populations is placing a burden on the state budget that is overwhelming resources," he said.

A lesson in the recent history of state school funding doesn't address the students' worries however.

"I got no sense he understood how critical the situation is," Megan Benton said. "I mean, doesn't he, and other politicians, realize how important education is? That without well-educated citizens democracy doesn't work, that it can't serve us well?"

Cundiff said she wonders if other people outside the schools realize how bad things have become.

"English is a subject where students need lots of individual attention. We're at maximum size, crammed into this tiny room where it's really hard to concentrate," she said.

Lindsey Warner, who at 15 self-confidently shares her goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon, says current cuts have hurt.

"We lost our health teacher this spring. That devastated the class," Warner said.

She said she wonders if voters realize that "this economic boom won't continue if employers can't find qualified employees."

Cundiff says the competitive ability of students is being eroded.

"Colleges want you to have a minimum of two or three years of a foreign language," she said. "But now, after my first year, German class is going to be discontinued. I'm left with just one choice, Spanish.

"I loved the German class but now it seems like all that effort was wasted," she said.

It may not be easy for the legislature to come up with a way to fix the problem.

Westlund noted that he did offer students one idea for a solution -- but later decided it wouldn't have much impact.

"I suggested that we needed to pass a real estate transfer tax that would go direct to local districts without Salem being able to put their mitts on it," he said. "But that was before I realized that a 1 percent tax would only raise a fraction of what is needed."

Financial hardship does not dim the students' enthusiasm for their school and their community.

"We have great teachers and students," Adams said. "I love walking down the halls and knowing almost every kid."

Also, he says his high school experience would have suffered "without the strong support our school gets from the Sisters community."

Cundiff, Warner and Benton strongly agreed, but Benton sounded a wistful note.

"I'm glad I'm graduating this spring," she said. "Things aren't looking good for our schools."

She may be right.

Westlund estimates schools statewide will face even greater hardships under current funding sources.

"I estimate that we'll be short anywhere from $700 million to $1 billion dollars in our next biennial school budget," he said.