Schools may be able to keep helpful prgrams =]

The article that caught my attention in the San Jose Mercury News was one titled “State legislators propose giving school districts spending flexibility”. This article talks about how the state will give the schools some flexibility with the budget when it comes to important programs in schools. There are programs that will not be changes such as school lunches, class-size reduction, and bi-lingual programs. Then there are programs that will undergo budget cuts but are exempt from the flexibility like student test, AVID, and school for prisoners. The programs that will have flexibility when it comes to being part of the schools budget are GATE, the gifted and talented classes, career and technical classes, and some unprotected programs for English language learners. This article and topic really interest me because I once attended schools in San Jose and was actually part of four of the programs mentioned in the article. I was part of the English learner program when I first started school since I didn’t speak a word of English and as a consequence of that I was also part of the bi-lingual program that my elementary school offered. I was also part of the GATE program in elementary school and once I hit high school I was in the AVID program for a year. So this decision really hits close to home for me. If these programs had not been around when I was in school I might have not made it to college. I think that the chance of some flexibility with the budget for schools is a good idea because it will help keep some important programs in schools that may help kids actually get into college.