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Athena McDaniel felt she was invisible to her teachers and classmates until she joined the Phoenix program, an alternative educational program at Fremont Union High School District for students who are behind on their credits.
"My GPA jumped from .0 to 3.5," McDaniel, 17, told school board trustees at their March 4 meeting. "I am going to graduate this year. Any cuts on the program won't affect me, but I want this option to be open for students who need this."
McDaniel was among the 200 students and parents who attended the meeting to fight for programs that might be affected by the district's proposed budget cuts, which could total almost $10 million.
"The district is preparing for the worst scenario in case the Legislature approves the governor's budget cut" of $3.2 billion in K12 education, said Superintendent Stephen Rowley.
The district has put an immediate freeze on hiring and staff development, as well as purchasing textbooks. Although classes of the core curriculum will be left intact, many classes will be cancelled, which means laying off teachers.
"By law we are required to put everyone on notice before March 15, but these are only proposed cuts," Rowley said. "The board will make the final decisions on May 15."
District officials said Gov. Gray Davis' proposed budget cuts are especially harmful to "basic aid" school districts like Fremont.
The state is required to provide $120 per student per average daily attendance for public education. This money is usually called basic aid.
School districts are categorized as basic aid when they receive most of their funding from local property taxes in addition to basic aid. In the Fremont Union High School District, almost 100 percent of the district's funding comes from property taxes. Basic aid amounts to only about 1 percent of the district's total funding.
Davis' proposal is to reduce local property tax contributions to school districts by 15 percent to make up for the state's deficit. If his proposal is approved, Fremont will lose $8 million in property tax.
"Nonbasic aid school districts are facing a 2 percent budget reduction, but our school district will have a 15 percent budget reduction," said Cindy McArthur, the district's manager of communications.
"If the state takes away our property tax, we will have to reduce the number of periods in the school day and limit the number of classes a student may take," McArthur said. "It's going to hurt our teachers, administrators and, most important of all, our students."
Kathryn Ho, president of the school district's board of trustees, encourages parents and students to keep sending petition letters to legislators and the governor, pressuring them to maintain local property tax money in the local school districts.
"Nothing is known for certain until the Legislature approves midyear cuts in the next 30 days or this fall, when next year's state budget is approved," Ho said. "We need to let the politicians know we care."
For more information about how the state budget crisis will affect the Fremont Union High School District, visit www.fuhsd.org.
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