In the budget amendments for the 2016-2017 school year, the Birmingham School District transferred $755,386 from the Autistic Center Program Special Revenue Fund to the Athletic Fund. The original budget proposal saw a greater transfer of $756,988 to the budget fund. Steve Scheidt, the president of the Board of Education of the Birmingham Public Schools, said that the budget transfer was necessary. “The Board of Education saw that particular transfer of funds to be essential to the welfare of Birmingham athletics, and the money was transferred from a fund that didn’t need that money. All budget amendments are passed with a majority vote. The Board of Education does, however, hear citizen complaints at the board meetings,” Scheidt said. …show more content…
Student athletes, however, are often given priority, and are more likely to get the accommodations they need.” Janice Hale, the professor of early childhood education at Wayne State agrees that too often, special-needs students, namely autistic students, are considered a low priority, and do not get the same access to resources as other students. “It’s a sad reflection on society of how little we care for those with other needs. It’s especially visible within our school students. If around $12,000 dollars is spent on the average student at the school, only around $8,000 is spent on a student in an autism or special needs program.” Within Birmingham, in Seaholm, for the year 2016, on average, each student brought in $15,200 in revenue, and the average student had $14,800 spent on them in expenditures. It was estimated that special needs students brought in the same amount, but only had $8,800 spent on them. With the budget transfers factored in, the amount spent on special needs students in likely to be lower. “The way we treat those in society who are differently-abled is, frankly, an epidemic, and as a society, we need to start doing better,” Christenfeld said. Thomas Alexanders, a sophomore in the Autism Spectrum Disorder Program, was also shocked at budget transfer. “It feels like such a low blow, especially because there’s no-one out there defending us,” Alexanders said. Hale stressed the importance of community
Ms. Diaz-Harrison has a daughter and she chose to put her in a charter school that specialized in the arts because that fit her daughter’s needs. For her son, who has autism she had no idea where she was going to put him at for school. Ms. Diaz-Harrison decided to open her on charter school in Phoenix. This school was named Arizona Autism Charter School. Her exact words when opening the school was, “we didn’t have a school like that-now we do!”
The first area I was able to cut directly impacted me as the principal. I cut all spending for principal funds including phone, office supplies, and travel. I feel that making these cuts sends an important message that I don’t just expect my staff to be the individuals that have to make sacrifices. These budget changes would most likely come directly out of my pocket, however this is a necessary expense to keep the morale of the staff as high as possible and to also send the message that I am impacted by these changes as much as my staff. There also wouldn’t be much backlash from any other stakeholders as cutting these funds would almost entirely be impacting me and future individuals that are in my position. Cutting the funding of these three areas alone would reduce the school budget by $1,120.00 or around 1.5%.
If we had more money in our budget to do our competitive season, we would not have to say goodbye to competing. The program receives a mere $1000, for the whole band program, as said by the band director. That is not enough for our program. My school district needs to fund the EMBC program separately from the regular band programs. I am not saying that their program isn’t as important, but we, the EMBC, require more funding for our award winning program. It is a sport, and therefore merits the full funding like any other team. A way we can do that is by moving around funding from teams who don’t require as much and move it towards the ones that do, like us. One example of this, would be to move excess funding from one
Instructional Improvement Fund – Carry forward as reduced based on a review of the 2017 year-to-date expenditures.
When you get to the issue of budgets there is really two parts to them. The general budget which is what the school district per say pays towards coaches salaries, transportation, and event workers. Coaches salaries are normally $120,000, transportation would be $50,000, and event workers can be around $5,000 - $10,000. Then the other part of the budget is the sports income, which is money from booster clubs, participation from other schools, and admissions, and it comes to roughly $120,000. Which goes out to uniforms, the athletic trainer, equipment and our participation at other school events. (Ross)
Financial burdens are an obvious upset to families with autistic children, on top of the already heavy expense of having a child there is now medical costs and often counselling. Sen and Yurtsever (2007) reported that families often feel “shock, denial, suffering, depression, guilt, indecision, anger, shame, bargaining, acceptance and adaptation” upon discovering they have a child who suffers from ASD. This disorder has effects on their daily “lifestyles, social relationships, economic situation, health, and goals or expectations for the future” (Norton & Drew, 1994; Sen & Yurtsever, 2007). “Autism is the most common neurological condition diagnosed in children and it is now
According to the budget, the programs that are needed and make a difference (students with disabilities, homeless and immigrants) are where the funding is applied. The funding sources for the Bibb county District Schools applied are as follows Title I & II, At Risk, local school and others are looked at yearly for implementation of the following year. The ways the funds are distributed are upsetting. The students rank at 41 out of the 51 states in education which is near the bottom for academic performance. Bibb County District is considered a poor county as it ranks 40th in the nation in child welfare. It is mentioned that education and the ability to earn a stable income will always be connected together, (Purser, 2015). The allocated funds should be distributed to helping the students who need the extra tutoring or help in specific areas in all schools. The statistics of academic performance proves that either the students’ needs are not being met by the teachers being paid for their services or the funding of other programs are not being applied to the appropriate programs for these student to excel in their performance, (Miles,
An essential component of the AFB process exists in the need for comprehensive, up to date information concerning the budgetary status of the institution. At Rutgers, transparent budget meetings take place annually, involving the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and the University’s Chief Budget Officer meeting with deans (). As a result, academic priorities, budgets, and opportunities for revenue generation are discussed.
Oklahoma as of today is ranked 49th nationally in per-pupil expenditures and ranked 48th in teacher pay (Klein 2). Putting Oklahoma as one of the worst states to be educated in the United States. “Oklahoma is consistently ranked near the bottom for education funding and teacher pay” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth And Job Creation” 3). When there are state cuts that need to be made, the departments of education are one of the first that usually tend to suffer. Since the 2008 economic crisis, Oklahoma has continued to cut the budget for education; even though the economy has since then gotten better (Perry). Budget cuts in education affect all parts of the education process for the students. “Some school districts have ordered teacher layoffs and shorter sessions” (“Oklahoma Makes the Poor Poorer” par 4).Schools are now struggling to keep their heads above water. Each year from the budget cutting, schools have had to lay off teachers, cut entire programs, and have limited resources used to educate the students. Even the teachers’ retirement system is suffering, being one of the top poorly funded pension programs nationally (Ash par 3). Seeing as that the schools have to cut down classes and programs, administration has had no other choice than to increase class size, overwhelming teachers tremendously. “Oklahoma has 1,500 fewer classroom teachers and 40,000 more students since 2008-2009” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth
When reviewing the budget amounts (individual line items) and budget as a whole, does the budget include enough funding to meet the school’s needs?
Some school systems assign disproportionate numbers of students from particular groups to special education classes. They
According to a website the outlook into the year 2015 has an increased budget of two percent, but only twenty-three percent is going to other programs as stated. Less than half of that budget goes to programs such as band, football, soccer, theatre, etc… Out of that twenty-three percent the school divides the money to the programs, but who is to say that all of the programs are receiving the same amount. The school has the opportunity to give more back to the programs, but it is up to them whether or not they choose to take
There are a lot of people who live with autism, and by the time they are adults, are able to take care of themselves. “My autism is the reason I’m in college and successful. It’s the reason I’m in math and science. It’s the reason I care,” (Jacob Barnett). Jacob is a math and physics prodigy, and he lives with autism. All over the internet there are stories about people with autism living normal, or even extraordinary lives. People who work with them learn to accept their quirks and eventually realize that they can function just as well as anyone else. This is one example of someone who learned how to overcome the issues that autism presents, and go on to be something really special.
For most of our nation's history, children with special needs or disabilities were shunted aside. In spite of mandated education laws that had been in place since 1918, many students were denied education and
The team took the two reason into consideration and tried to redistribute their budget funds.