With the elections coming up you have the resources to get information and to let those running for office know how important funding for education is to you.

Please go to K12.wa.gov to find out further information regarding school funding. Specifically Senate Bill 6673 and Bill 6534. Please carefully read the “No Child Left Behind” bill. You can read articles in our local paper about how many students are now being left behind because of WASL testing. Money does not go directly to the schools for this testing. This is a failing program and the money could be put to much better use elsewhere.

You can also go to access.wa.gov and e-mail your state officials about your thoughts and concerns about state and federal funding for education.

The following are my concerns. I have worked for the Oak Harbor School District for six years as a classified employee. My husband and I have two children who attend school in the OHSD.

In the meetings I have attended and in the articles and board documents that I have read, there is one word that has been brought up: PAIN. Who will feel the pain because of the budget reductions? The employees who have lost their jobs? Do the administrators feel any pain? In an article in the Whidbey News-Times regarding the upcoming levy Dr. Schulte stated that “the people not sharing the pain are our local taxpayers.”

While talking with my colleagues regarding the budget reductions we speak about friends who have lost their jobs and how there is a feeling of frustration and a lack of morale in the air. What we talk about the most is our concern for the students, who will feel the pain the most.

They come into school on a crowded bus, to enter a building where the restrooms might have hand soap, there might be an instructional assistant there to help them with problems they are having with math, the class might have text books, and the class may have less than 30 students. Now added to the list is additional fees for students to play sports in our school district. My daughter, who will be in seventh grade next year, will not have the opportunity to play basketball because she has never played in school and will not meet the varsity level requirements. It appears to myself and many of my friends with children who play sports in the OHSD, both middle school and high school, that the parents who have the money will be the ones whose children will have a chance to participate in as many sports as they would like. Oak Harbor has built a multi-million dollar stadium so that the haves can use it and the have-nots can come out and watch the others play.

We continue to hear the same old song and dance we heard last year when the OHSD closed an elementary school, the reason being that enrollment was expected to go down by 100 students the following year. Which the district states is a long-term trend. That being said why didn’t the district start to balance the budget as soon as this information was realized? Their data dates back to 1998. They waited until the early part of 2008 to form a budget committee. The district also states that the 2007-2008 count of federally-impacted students was down by 99 students: the same reasons stated for closing Clover Valley Elementary last year. The OHSD will also add that other districts in Washington have also closed schools. I would like to point out that the OHSD was and is fully aware of the items I have outlined during the classified and certificated contract negotiations.

I think that school employees, parents of children who attend school in this district, and the Oak Harbor community as a whole have a right to be given all information pertinent to OHSD and its budget. In 2006-2007 a salary comparison survey of 12 like-sized school districts was compiled. Oak Harbor’s superintendent, Rick Schulte, is number four on that list. OHSD supervisors were number seven. Custodians, who suffered many cuts this year, were number 11 on that survey.

The school board has just voted to extended Rick Schulte’s contract. Perhaps since student enrollment is low and only going to get lower, according to the school district’s data, there isn’t a need for an assistant superintendent. OHSD also has a director of communications when there is already a communication/technical department in place. E-mail the OHSD school board at www.ohsd.net and ask them why.

Be informed and let your elected officials know how you feel about these issues. You can make a difference.

Colleen Herrick lives in Oak Harbor.