Student displeased with cuts
May 5, 2010 by Rachel Dooley

Novi High School's budget cuts have done absolutely no good for anyone. Well, except for the district itself. The budget cuts are helping to bring them out of debt. But as for the students and faculty, its a completely different story. Novi Schools are facing $6.7 million in budget cuts. As a result of these budget cuts, 75 staff members are dealing with job losses. And as for the teachers that are not losing their job, they have to conform to a completely new teaching style, a new schedule, and worse of all, a much higher number of students per class.

This task is not going to be easy for teachers. Novi has had the "block schedule" for quite a few years, and teachers have all gotten used it by now. They now are going to have six periods to teach per day, instead of four, a much shorter period to teach all of the curriculum in, and many more students per period. The fact that the periods are going to be shorter and that there will be more students per class is going to greatly affect the students too. They are not going to have as much time to ask the teachers questions, and they will have a lesser chance to even have the opportunity to ask the questions, since there will be more students with questions to ask. This is most likely going to affect the grades and grade-point-averages of the students. And not in a positive way. Also, because of the schedule change, the Tuesday/Thursday seminar period is being removed. This period is used by students who have questions to ask teachers, or things to make up in classes. Cutting seminar is not going to help students at all. Novi schools are known as great schools, with very intelligent students, and we don't want this to change because of the budget cuts.

These budget cuts have caused quite a controversy within the Novi High School walls. I, being a student, was completely infuriated at the thought of the Arts Department being cut due to the budget cuts. I have wanted to go into broadcasting and/or journalism for most of my life, and a great way to start that career is in high school. If the Arts Department was cut, I would not have been able to take these classes in preparation for my career. Luckily, they decided against cutting the Arts Department. However, the rumor right now is that they are thinking about cutting the Life Management Department in order to save money. This department prepares students for their future with classes such as child development and contemporary relationships. These classes could be completely beneficial for anyone that is planning on ever having a child, which is mostly everyone.

These budget cuts, even though they cannot be avoided, could probably have been enforced in a better way. Maybe in such a way that the schedule would not have been changed to a 6-period day, and so many teachers would not have been laid off. In order to make sure that the Life Management Department is not cut, we, as in students and parents, must send in letters to the Board of Education with our complaints and thoughts. This is the only way to save the Department; by showing how much it means to the students and their families. If we do not save the Life Management Department, students could end up not knowing how to react to common situations that may happen in their upcoming future.

Sincerely,

Rachael Dooley,
Novi High School student