As the title says, the school budget for my district failed. About two weeks ago we held the first vote to approve the budget, it failed, so there was a re vote (very democratic imo, have a re vote without changing any part of the budget because we didn't like the first result.) Now, there will be no sports or clubs next year unless the community raises enough money to pay for everything (for example, the football team can't raise enough money to pay for their season but not basketball's.) Goodbye athletic scholarships, hello kids smoking pot after school.
I am lucky I just finished my senior year but it still sucks for my girlfriend and younger friends who still have more time in the high school. There will be no homecoming or yearbook (yearbook was made by a club.)
The part I don't get is that the difference between the budget containing sports and a budget with only the bare necessities amounted to $20/month per household.

I was pretty happy when mine failed. if you're from long island taxes are already insanely high.

ZOMG this is worse than the holocaust.

Was there something outlandish about the budget, or politically unusual about your school district? 92% of NYS school budgets were approved this year.

Yeah I'm from Nassau County. The only thing is that the difference between the potential budget and new budget is a small amount of money per household.

Not that I'm aware of. It did go up from last year but that was because of teacher salaries and other usual things.

On another note, it's a good thing we just had new bleachers installed and are getting turf for the football field since nobody will be playing there.

I'd happily pay it because I think extra-curriculars are important for kids, but $20/month is not a negligible amount. Especially for those who don't have any kids between the ages of 14 and 17.

Yeah, I realize that and there are a lot of old people in my neighborhood which was most likely the source of the failure. Regardless of how old your children are, your property value declines when the school budget fails, so unless your budget was stretched to the limits already, I don't know why anybody would vote no.

Ah, I remember being in public high school and the continued threats of not approving the budget and TAKING AWAY ALL OF OUR SPORTS JESUS CHRIST!

I thought it was stupid then and I think it is stupid now. Maybe if public schools weren't run like **** then they'd not hemorrhage money.

It's not just the sports. I was a member of the academic team this year and that won't be around next year. It's just frustrating.

Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for kids water polo equipment. If the kids want to play water polo they should pay for their own goggles and helmets or their parents should.

I probably woulda been a dropout in grade 10 if not for sports. They kept me in school, and I started to take it seriously after that. It sucks kids won't get the chance. If the people running schools were in the private sector, they would have been fired a long time ago.

You don't think sports or clubs can be beneficial to the community?

Not enough to justify paying for them with taxes.

Goggles and helmets aren't in water polo. How about maintaining the pool?

Unfortunately now we don't have the option of paying for individual sports and players. It's either all or nothing. I can't see how having no sports is better than having sports.

joel, i'm from nassau county too, where are you from? I went to Locust Valley all my life, I live in Upper Brookville, though.

Wantagh. I used to live out in Suffolk County but moved to Nassau a couple years ago as things in Suffolk were quickly going bad.

An industry of union workers is facing budget problems? Shocking.

Pretty much.

One thing that can be said for the redneck South: football is such a moneymaker for a school it carries lots of other extracurriculars on its back.

bakesale mother****er

More cheerleader carwashes imo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDExZ...eature=related

Wow, I know exactly where you're coming from on this.

I recently graduated from a Northeast Ohio school and we haven't passed a levy since the early 80's. Teacher salary freezes for like five years, and the levy they wanted was like $120/year for the average household. I haven't been around recently, but I think there are something like 40 teacher cuts for next year (about 200 kids/class FWIW).

Plus it's not even that close, it usually fails 35/65.

wow, that's pretty terrible