monika nayakfeaturewriter

A victim of past budget cuts, Drivers’ Education lost staffing and its driving component two years ago. Matthew Butchart (10) practices

driving using a steering column in Mr. Trevor Grimshaw’s 3rd hour class, Sept. 13. Once again, the future of the course is uncertain.

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Along with the 86 core classes a Rockwood high school offers, 21 advanced placement classes and 145 business, fine art, journalism, physical education, speech and debate, theater and world language classes are available for student enrollment; however many of these courses are at risk.

“I do photography, and I want to pursue a career in it,” Alexa McAndrew (10) said. “It’s a good class to take. You not only learn skills with a camera or with a dark room, but you learn how to express yourself. It’s a big part of my life.”

These classes shape students’ career decisions and define the rest of their lives. Their absence would harm the quality of students’ educations.

The future of this learning environment is jeopardized by the district’s financial status. After five years of cutting over $25 million, Rockwood School District continues to face a murky future. For an overview of the district’s past cost-savings measures visit ehs-hub.info.

A group of patrons working with a consultant have organized to define the district’s future and the kinds of schools students will attend: Picture Rockwood.

Picture Rockwood is a community outreach program designed to create a vision of the future for Rockwood. Facilitators invite patrons and taxpayers to meet at the Administrative Annex. To accommodate the various schedules of stakeholders, two meetings are held for each session: Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings. Two sessions have passed, and the remaining dates for the sessions are Oct. 30 and Nov. 1, Nov. 13 and 15 and Dec. 4 and 6. Times for the sessions can be found at picturerockwood.com.

At the sessions, stakeholders analyze each picture, modifying and adapting them to reflect attendee input. Each of the eight pictures outlined the staffing, technology, curriculum, facilities and financial decisions required for that particular picture.

“As the process unfolds, I am really excited about what our citizens and community members are going to come up with,” Dr. Bruce Borchers, superintendent, said after the first session meeting, Sept. 11. “We had a broad spectrum of people: community members, parents and some staff. People are proud of the district and want to maintain our high performance.”

The first picture represents the district’s current finances. One possibility of cuts for the 2013-2014 school year eliminates 12 teachers across the high schools. The result would be increased class sizes for all grade levels. Another factor could be students will have to pay a fee to participate in some extra-curricular activities and sports. While not all measures will be enacted some will most certainly become a reality.

If the BOE does not decide to place a tax levy or bond issue on the ballot, these modifications will become reality.

These eight pictures will be narrowed down to one or two during the sessions. Picture Rockwood will present the final picture(s) to the BOE, Dec. 6. After contemplating the consequences of each decision, the Board of Education will decide if anything needs to be placed on the April ballot.

Voters living in the Rockwood area had the opportunity to pass a $43.2 million dollar bond issue called Proposition R, April

3, 2012. The no-tax-increase bond monies would have been dedicated to technology, safety, infrastructure and maintenance of current facilities. The bond issue required a 4/7 majority. The majority (53.95%) voted yes, but the minority (46.05%), who voted no, won.

“I was in charge of the campaign [for Prop R],” Mrs. Mary Roberds, EHS parent, said. “I think the financial issues that our district is facing are much greater than most people realize. There were things in Prop R that were essential to the school district, to my school and to my kid.”

The passing of Prop R in the spring would have meant that the district would have had increased revenue.

While the rejection of Prop R did not cause the creation of Picture Rockwood, it did speak to a larger concern.

“The district does not have an appropriate budget to replace outdated technology or provide preventative maintenance on facilities,” Mr. Tim Rooney, the district’s chief financial and legislative officer, said. “The budget for these areas is about $1 million and falls well short of the $4 million needed each year for technology replacements and another $8.4 million for preventative maintenance based on industry standards. That means that preventative maintenance comes to a halt. The fix-on-failure method is when you wait until systems break before you fix them. That’s not a good approach.”

Main sources of money for the district are property taxes, state sales tax, desegregation aid and the state foundation formula. A little over 63 percent of operating revenue comes from local property taxes, according to the district’s Fingertip Financial Facts 2011-2012.

The budget covers operating and capital needs. Operating needs include teacher salaries and benefits and supplies. Capital needs are expenditures including additions to facilities, replacing roofs and building new buildings.

It is important for budget makers to consider maintaining facilities as well as the construction of new facilities.

Currently, the district

struggles with creating a balanced budget where the expenditures do not exceed the income.

Because Rockwood is a public school system, the district receives a portion of property owners’ taxes. To increase district income, voters can pass a dedicated tax levy; however the district has not asked residents for a tax increase since 1994.

“My biggest concern is that our expenditures are greater than our revenue,” Mr. Rooney said. “In the long term, we either need to get the revenues up to the expenditures or the expenditures down to the revenues. This must happen. This is the time to engage the community because we have difficult choices ahead of us. It is important that residents have a way to get involved and make decisions about programs that will affect their children’s future.”

With millions in cuts needed to balance next year’s budget, students will be feeling the crunch long before April.

“It’s great that Eureka has so many departments,” Zachary Kupfer (12) said. “If we didn’t have as many departments it’d be harder to excel at life because you don’t really know what you’re good at for a college major or a career.”

The projected deficit for next year is $6.6 million, according to Mr. Rooney.

EHS is already feeling the lack. “Our school is one of the few that

has continued to grow,” Mrs. Jennifer Strauser, associate principal, said. “The other areas of our school district don’t feel the pinch of growth because their buildings haven’t experienced that growth. We are in desperate need for some improvements, especially the locker rooms. We have to see what we can do to help maintain our high quality of education within our current financial constraints.”

All property owners have much at stake.“People move into the district because

they assume that we have quality schools,” Mr. Park Plank, Picture Rockwood community chair from Eureka, said. “The values of the homes are solid in large part because of

the quality of the district, but if we can’t continue to look to the future and decide how we’re going to make the district more financially sound, we are going to be somewhere down along the road and those assumptions will disappear.”

Sixty-five percent of today’s grade -school children will end up in jobs that haven’t been invented yet, Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University professor, poses in her book “Now You See It.”

Technologies, initially introduced merely as an aid in teaching, have become an integral part in the learning process.

“In my classes, we use a SMARTboard every day,” Mrs. Kimberly Lackey, Spanish teacher, said. “We do a lot of multimedia things in all of the world language classes. We are pulling videos, authentic listening pieces and things like that for kids to work with and practice their comprehension.”

If the district isn’t able to keep technology current, students of the future will not be able to be competitive in a highly technical world after graduation.

“We wouldn’t know how to use a lot of it because you get exposed to technology at school,” Amy Goldsby (11) said. “Students would be at a disadvantage.”

Cutting education down to the core would make for a different Rockwood.

“I like Orchestra because it’s a creative way to show yourself,” Julia Brose (11) said. “Cutting something like orchestra would be a huge mistake. It would not serve our community well because you have future musicians that come out of Rockwood. Where do you represent Eureka or Rockwood if you don’t have a system for these students to thrive in?”

The future of Rockwood students may be a bit dimmer.

“I’ve raised my kids to say that you don’t get to complain if you’re not willing to step up and get something done,” Mrs. Roberds said. “I try to make people understand how important it is to the community as a whole. At some point we have to look to the future.”

The Picture Rockwood sessions are stakeholders’ chance to shape students’ schools.

Roadwork aheadLack of funding may create obstacles in students’ schedules

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2Feature

As 44.2% of students believe taxes shoud be raised for the upper class*, economic growth becomes a key issue for consideration of candidates. Whoever takes the Oval Office come January

will be saddled with the responsibility of continuing to navigate the country out of the worst economic environment since the Great Depression.

In terms of job growth, President Obama plans to eliminate tax breaks for companies

that ship jobs overseas and offer tax incentives to businesses that bring jobs back to the U.S., according to his site. He also desires to cut

taxes on manufacturing in the U.S. and generate one million manufacturing jobs by 2016.

President Obama does not specify on how he will generate these jobs which prove important as unemployment was 7.8 percent when Obama took office in January of 2009. The rate peaked at 10 percent in October of 2009 and has been declining

ever since, with the unemployment rate at 7.8 percent as of September 2012, according to The Bureau

of Labor Statistics. President Obama also includes the American Recovery and Reinvestment

Act of 2009 in his plan for the economy. Because this act has no set end date, its policies will carry over from his current administration to his potential presidency in 2012.

The goals of this act have been to create new jobs, keep existing jobs, stimulate the economy while investing in long-term growth and promoting transparency in government stimulus spending. The act accomplishes

this through tax cuts and benefits for working families and businesses and funding government programs such as unemployment benefits and federal grants and loans, according to its site: recovery.gov. All data of the Recovery Act’s spending is available on that site.

President Obama’s tax policy focuses on improving tax fairness across the board. He wants to keep middle class taxes low while repealing the Bush tax cuts that gave anyone making over $250,000 reductions in their taxes. He will also bring in tax fairness through the Buffet Rule, which ensures that wealthy individuals do not pay a lower tax rate than middle class Americans.

“We definitely need to raise taxes on the upper class simply because it’s not right that they’re making so much more money yet paying a lower percentage of taxes than your average working class citizen,” Nathan Vorel (12) said.

Alternatively, Governor Romney proposes tax cuts for corporations, reducing their income tax rate to 25 percent, according to his site. He wants to make across-the-board cuts for individual taxes, following the idea that if taxes are cut, the economy grows, also known as Reagonomics or trickle-down economics.

Governor Romney’s economic recovery plan’s main priority is job creation as well, though he would go about it in a slightly different way.

To create these highly-needed jobs, he would employ the tactic of retraining programs to reshape American workers for the industries needing jobs today. These retraining programs would partner state governments and private industries to retrain American workers. These Personal Reemployment Accounts would put individuals directly into companies that would then provide on-the-job training, according to his site. However, the actual effect on the unemployment rate of these retraining programs raises questions. For example, the enactment of the Workforce Investment Act in 1998 which provides training to American Indians, Alaska natives, migrant and seasonal farmworkers and veterans, the unemployment rate of the individuals involved in the program actually rose 1.5 percent in two years, according to the Department of Labor. He also supports the expansion of global markets.

With 33.7% of students believing we should not maintain a military presence anywhere*, how a

president interacts with other countries on various economic, humanitarian and military issues defines their foreign policy and strongly impacts voters’ views on the candidates. In an increasingly global economy, these interactions effect the U.S.

as a whole. “We’re not really protecting ourselves by occupying a

lot of countries throughout the world,” Carter Frerichs (9) said. “We’re just enforcing what our government says is a democracy. But you look at the countries that we’re occupying, and the citizens there don’t want us there. If we believed in democracy, we wouldn’t be there.”

The development of nuclear weapons around the world concerns both ends of the political spectrum, especially the development in Iran and North Korea, countries who have not been responsive to requests to cut their nuclear development. Obama has tried to effect change on Iran by imposing economic sanctions to persuade them to disarm.

Governor Romney says he will be more aggressive in his negotiation tactics with these two countries;

for example, in Iran he proposes not only continued economic sanctions, but diplomatic isolation and military action as well, according to Governor Romney’s website.

Political unrest in the Middle East remains a high priority. The source of the unrest stems from post-revolutionary chaos in Libya, Tunisia and Libya, fighting between Israel and Palestine and upheaval in Syria. Though the intricacies of each country’s situation can become complex, in general, both candidates think it best to intervene when the U.S.’s national security is at risk.

China’s rise in the global economy puts it on the radar. China has been buying the U.S.’ debt and currently owns 21.2 percent of the United States’ debt, according to the Treasury Department’s website.

Both also see military presence in the Pacific as an option for ensuring China does not become domineering in their economic practices and cut off U.S. trade in the East, according to candidates’ sites.

Civil and political rights in China, or lack thereof, also have caused both men to support development of those rights in China.

The one difference between the two candidate’s ideas on China remains Governor Romney’s plan for a “Reagan Economic Zone” in the East. The zone will create a trade coalition between countries who have chosen to adhere to a set of laws on free trade, according his site. He hopes this potential coalition of various countries in the East will show China the benefits of free trade.

Foreign Policy

Facing the facts

Jobs and Economy

mary tomlinson writerfeature

Some preliminary fact checking causes the candidates’ platforms, as defined by their own websites, to wobble

“Everything that I’ve tried to do and that I’m now proposing is designed to make sure that the American people, their genius, their grit, their determination, is channeled, and they have an opportunity to succeed.” —President Barack Obama, first presidential debate

31.6%of students identify themselves as a Democrat*

3Feature

64.2% of students believe that everyone has the right to healthcare*. The Affordable Care Act that President Obama issued in 2010—also known as Obamacare by its dissenters—stands out as a key factor.

“Everyone should be able to have the right medication to be as healthy as you can,” Claire Jensen (10) said. “I don’t think money should be the deciding factor.”

The ACA is a nationalized health care system that requires every American to be insured, according to the White House’s website.

Other key factors in the system included an extension of the dependent age to 26, allowing young adults to still be included on their parents’ insurance, an end to lifetime caps on insurance coverage and more access to services such as flu shots and mammograms that promote early detection and prevention, according to President Obama’s website.

Individuals may choose to purchase insurance through the government, but they still possess the right to purchase insurance through a private company. However, if an individual has no insurance, they would be charged a penalty of $95 in 2014, $350 in 2015, and $750 in 2016, according the Affordable Care Act.

The fact that the ACA requires every American to have insurance raised much controversy. However, in late June of 2012, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 the Affordable Care Act as constitutional. The ACA also increases funding to Medicare and works to close the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage that forces individuals to pay for 100% of prescription drug costs once the limit of the plan is reached,

according to whitehouse.govPresident Obama would keep this health care system in place. Contrary to President Obama, Governor Romney pledges to

repeal Obamacare on day one of his presidency with an executive order issuing Obamacare waivers to all fifty states while working with Congress to repeal the entire act, according to his site.

Though he issued a government health care system as governor of Massachusetts, he opposes the idea of a health care system under the federal government and believes it should be left to the states to decide what sort of health care plan works best. The federal government’s role under Governor Romney would be to create a level playing field for competition in the insurance market by creating a market for individual insurance. Currently, individuals pay more for insurance than businesses, so he wants to lower taxes on individuals purchasing insurance.

As for Medicare, he plans to take the government insurance program for the elderly in a new direction.

Instead of directly providing insurance for the elderly, Governor Romney’s Medicare will provide funds to choose between traditional Medicare insurance and other private insurance plans, promoting competition in the insurance market.

Health Care

Facing the facts

EducationThe education system in the U.S. is divided into two main

categories: K-12 education and higher education, or college. The state governments have main control over their state’s K-12

education systems, though they receive much of their funding from the Federal government through programs within the Department of Education.

One prominent program from President Obama’s first administration is Race to the Top, a program that gives states federal grant money if they create and administer quality assessments that test whether K-12 students are ready for college and the workplace, according to the Department of Education’s website. President Obama would continue this system in 2013, even though 4th grade reading scores decreased among 50 percent of the schools recieving funding between 2009 and 2011, as well as math scores decreasing among 20 percent of the schools, according to the Nation’s Report Card.

In K-12 education, Governor Romney would reform No Child Left Behind, a federal program signed by President Bush that supports education reform based on specific standards, by making the information collected in the program available through a public report card. However, No Child Left Behind has experienced mixed success since its implementation. The annual percentage change in fourth graders deemed proficient in reading has decreased from .4 percent in pre-NCLB years to -.2 percent in post-NCLB years, while the math scores have improved from 1.5 percent in pre-NCLB years to 2.4 percent in post-NCLB years, according to a study done by University of California-Berkeley.

Governor Romney also supports the development of charter schools, which are schools funded by the government but

privately run. In exchange for exemption from some regulations that apply to public schools, charter schools are held accountable for proving accountability in the quality of the education they administer, according to the National Education Association’s website.

Though both candidates believe in state-controlled education for K-12, their views polarize with higher education.

President Obama’s goal is to make higher education more available for students and their families and has pledged to double the funding of government loans given to students attending higher education institutes, according to his site.

“I think that education is one of the most important things,” Sam Greaney (11) said. “If you don’t have the education, you can’t go on to do bigger things and you don’t have access to do things that you would want. Without having money, you don’t have that opportunity.”

The amount given to an individual depends on the student’s family’s income and other financial asset information noted in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), according to the Department of Education’s website.

Governor Romney believes in more of a private approach to the funding of higher education. Instead of focusing on government grants for students to attend college, Governor Romney would encourage the private industry to become more involved in financing students to attend college. He does not specify exactly how he will encourage this participation in college funding.

“I

know this is bigger than an

election about the two of us as individuals. It’s bigger than our

respective parties. It’s an election

about the course of America.”

—Governor Mitt Romney, first

presidential debate

36.8%of students identify

themselves as a Republican*

*According to an EHS survey of 117 students

4Student life

Painting for a purpose Art-a-Thon unites creativity, the fight against cancer

Various musical genres hum in the background as a group of students work on art projects after school. Paintbrushes sweep across the canvas, pencils scratch at the paper and fire molds glass beads for jewelry.

For these passionate art students, participation in Art-a-Thon means more than just using their imaginations and creativity to do what they love. They have the opportunity to help raise money for cancer awareness by simply creating art.

“I like that I get to spend extra time in the studio,” Eric Green (10) said. “What I work on raises money for a good cause.”

Mrs. Theresa Long, art teacher, developed the idea for starting an Art-a-Thon to help long-time family friend, Dr. Stephanie Graff, oncologist, with Dr. Graff’s fundraising goals for the American Cancer Society.

Last year, Mrs. Long attempted to raise money by establishing a Pink Booth, where students made pink items to sell at lunch. While they made money for the cause, it did not prove as successful as she wished.

A desire to raise even more than last year prompted the creation of the Art-a-Thon, an idea that stemmed from art parties she used to have as a high school student with her friends.

“Like a marathon, Art-a-thon involves endurance and commitment of time and energy to the task,” Mrs. Long said. “I wanted to go beyond boundaries to raise cancer awareness.”

They meet after school three times a

week for three hours for a period of three weeks; however, students may be flexible on how much time they choose to spend in the studio and may log hours outside of the set meetings with adult supervision.

Their intent is to find sponsors for their time spent working. Sponsors elect to give artists a certain amount of money for each hour they work or a donor may make a one-time donation to the cause. All of donations will help them reach their goal of $500.00 with 100% of the proceeds will go the American Cancer Society.

“I have actually been doing very well

with finding sponsors,” Green said. “Mainly I have gotten family and family friends, as well as some teachers. Some people my mom works with have sponsored me, too.”

By bringing together art and service, students involved in Art-a-Thon have an opportunity to honor the memory of those affected by cancer.

“My grandmother died last year of breast cancer,” Billy Walke (9) said. “She fought it for awhile, but then it came back in her bones. Also, I have a neighbor up the street who is in stage 3, almost stage 4 cancer. He has a little boy that’s two that my mom

babysits, so it’s really close to my heart.”Because of the impact of cancer on her

life, Walke has spent her time creating art that will allow for her to practice her passion while also supporting a cause. She even created a piece for a teacher’s uncle who is currently battling cancer.

“I have some artist trading cards at home that I can use to make a puzzle out of,” Walke said. “I’m going to wrap them up in a bow and make him a puzzle that says ‘Life is not about the breaths you take in, but the moments that take your breath away.’ We want to make him smile.”

With parents and neighbors suffering, Art-a-Thon contributors’ creations in the art room carry significance beyond the art.

“My mom had cancer, so she has gotten a lot of her friends to help sponsor me,” Madison Doering (11) said. “I feel like I’m doing art that actually benefits people who need help.”

While logging their hours to receive support from sponsors, the artists also have the opportunity to learn new ways of creating art.

“I have never used Photoshop before,” Dani Sax (10) said. “Right now, I’m learning to use it to create a character.”

They have also had the opportunity to work as real artists do by working on commissions from various staff members.

Officer Mike Smith, resource officer, Mrs. Audrey Bell, hall monitor, and the administrative team have all commissioned the Art-a-Thon’s talents.

“The Art-a-Thon gives artists a great opportunity to give back to their community,” Taylor Emery (12) said.

maddiesanden-chiefeditor-in

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Admiring a new creation, Devin Kurtz (10) and Dani Sax (10) smile during the fourth

Art-a-Thon meeting in Mrs. Long’s room, Oct.8.

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