This is one person’s opinion, over the cutting of several vocational classes at Central High School. A few years ago the arts were cut because we did not have the funding, now in the last week it is an emergency that the board votes on cutting the vocational classes because there is decline in the enrollment. The paper stated that this is necessary because the enrollment over the last three years has declined by 300 plus students. My first question is why did they wait until now and became an emergency? The second question is why didn’t Dr. Coleman bring this to the School Superintendent and the Board earlier than in January of this year when the catalog has to be printed for next fall? Were all the students that left central in the last three years all in the vocational classes? If they were, then yes the classes have to be cut; however, I do not think that was the case. I feel that the decline in enrollment was overall throughout the campus of Central High; therefore, it seems that there is a lesser need for the teachers that supported the 300 plus students. These are just a few questions that I have and I am certain that there are many more questions that may arise in the next week or so.
The vocational classes at any campus are needed today! Not all of our young people aspire to go to college or can go for one reason or another. We need to have the means for training and use the means to train our young people in all walks of life. The vocational classes are one of the greatest avenues of training that we have and fill a great void in our society for the trades that support every one of us each and every day. Over the years we as a village and community have seen how important and beneficial the vocational training is and the impact on the community. What impact on the community are we going to have in the future when we stop having opportunities for our youth? We seem to find funding for the sports and have coaches and assistant coaches on the rolls, but no ones takes a stand on cutting them when funding gets tight. WHY?
G.W. Elmquist
Pardon my suspicious nature, but surely they did not decide to cut vacational ed because someone thought the students and their families in this curriculum are less likely to have as much clout as the upper middle class with college bound kids.
ReplyDeleteI like Jim's point about coaches and sports. Anybody who knows me can tell you, I am a football nut, and pretty fond of basketball. Nonetheless, if the budget crunch is really that severe, I would see both go to whatever level they could support on their own revenues before I accepted cutting vocational ed.
The number of students benefitting from voc ed may be small enough to make them an inviting target, but this program is crucial to keeping many of them in school. Let's try to remember, the first job of a school system is to educate, not to entertain sports fans.
Actually it was Gary's point. We now have someone on conchoinfo posting that is not named Jim.
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