Pella Community Schools had to cut $880,000 from its budget this year. As a result the school system will be losing three faculty members: Jefferson Intermediate Teacher-Librarian Paula Winward, Middle School Student Resources Teacher Morgan Lybbert, and French Teacher Carrie McCabe. The French Program will also be cut.
This affects French students. Students in French 3 do not have the opportunity to take French 4 next year. This means any students who planned on taking the Apple Test to get their seal of bi-literacy, will not have the preparation provided by the French 4 course. They may attempt taking it, but will most likely not pass. Junior Jack Kramer, a student of French 2, is one of the students affected by this program cut. It may be possible for French 3 students to take it online.
“If they offer French 3 next year somehow,” said Kramer. “I’ll definitely take it, but if they don’t, I’ll just wait to take it in college instead of having the credit go in.”
Kramer will miss taking French with Madame McCabe. Most French students are very fond of Madame McCabe.
“I’ll definitely miss all the games that we’ve played, but also just having Madame McCabe as a teacher,” said Kramer. “It’s really obvious that she actually really cares about what she’s teaching and also her students, and there aren’t a ton of teachers that make me feel that way.”
Superintendent Greg Ebeling said that the school district was spending more than it was making, so certain decisions had to be made.
“Public schools are funded on how many students we have, so during Covid, we lost about 47 students that year. This past year we lost about 10 students, so if our enrollment is growing, it kind of helps our budget, but if it’s not growing, we don’t get enough additional dollars per pupil every year to make up that difference,” said Ebeling. “In other words with higher inflation and those types of things, we just haven’t had the money and revenue to keep up with our expenses. Then your revenue and expenses get out of balance, and you have more expenses than you do revenue, and that’s just how that goes over time.”
The process of cutting the budget is specifically being called the “Program Driven Budget.” He made recommendations for the cuts, and the school board approved them.
“I think whenever you change programs, like reducing the French program, it certainly impacts students moving forward,” said Ebeling. “Like with our CNA program, we’re looking at it being run by DMACC or William Penn, so those are all things we’re used to being able to control, so now of course there are potentially less offerings for students. Those are all elective classes, and we try to offer a pretty wide variety of electives, but that’s the kind of thing that does impact students for sure.”
Many students and other members of the community may wonder how Pella is completely redoing our stadium when our budget needs to be cut.
“In school finance, you have many different funds. Some of the funds are like nutrition funds, some of the funds are general funds, some of the funds are physical plan and fitness funds, and so the reality is that one fund can’t pay for something else,” said Ebeling. “So even though we reduce the general fund, which is where people [salaries] come from, we still have money in some of those other funds. It’s just the way school finance works.”
