Schoolin' is Important?

My home school district, the Meridian (Joint #2) School District, announced deep cuts for next year's fiscal year to overcome more than $3.6 million in shortfalls. Here's what the proposed budget includes:

•teacher contracts will be cut by two days
•students will pay $50 each to participate in extracurricular activities
•some positions — counselors, library aides and classroom aides — will be "reduced"

The school district sure picked some good ways to save money....

Who needs teachers to work a full year? Those stinking teachers already get paid more than enough.

Why should students be involved in extracurricular activities? Those waste money and don't offer kids anything productive. It's not like extracurricular activities offer self-esteem, confidence, leadership, responsibility, respect or provide an alternative to drugs, sex and rock and roll.

Why should we keep counselors, library aides and classroom aides? f teachers can't handle 40-50 student classes with two fewer days and no aide they should be in prison. What could students possibly need counselors for? It's not like students are faced with issues like divorce, sex, peer pressure, college anxiety, academic problems drugs or relationship issues.

For all the problems with the proposed budget, I don't blame the Meridian School District. The blame lies solidly and properly with one group of illustrious individuals:

IDAHO LEGISLATIVE REPUBLICANS

How can a school district, especially the Meridian School District (which is the largest and has grown the fastest in Idaho), expect to deal with providing a good education for a growing population with the same amount of money?

I'm so glad the Idaho Legislature has lived up to it's charge in Article IX, Section 1 of the Idaho Constitution:

SECTION 1. LEGISLATURE TO ESTABLISH SYSTEM OF FREE SCHOOLS. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.

Gotta love the "common sense over book learnin'" belief of Idaho Republicans...