School Districts throughout U.S. Cut Class Weeks and Days for Lack of Funds

PRESS RELEASE

School Districts throughout U.S. Cut Class Weeks and Days for Lack of Funds

July 29, 2017 (EIRNS)—Hundreds of school districts are now planning to reopen this fall, with reduced course subjects, class hours, and even class days, for lack of funds. Education, along with Medicaid, rank as two of the top state funding categories, and many states, with significant revenue decline, are now cutting help for strapped localities.

In Oklahoma, at least 96 districts have already dropped down to a four-day week, out of 513 districts in the state. This is four times as many, as in that shape four years ago. An additional 44 school districts are right now in the process of deciding whether to cut the school week, or just lob days off the school year. Oklahoma first started cutting school weeks in 2009.

As of this spring, The Atlantic reported that close to half of all school districts in Montana were on cut time, 88 districts in Colorado, and 30 in Oregon. Idaho has also reduced school days in many localities.

Back East, there are many kinds of adjustments for lack of funds. In Torrington, Connecticut this past week, the Board of Education came up with a contingency plan to delay the start of school in September, if necessary. For each day the school district stays closed, it can delay spending $190,000, which it may or may not get from the state, which at present, is in a budget crisis.