4
NEWS
MARCH 2023
HOLT HIGH SCHOOL RAMPARTS
Countrywide, teachers buy supplies When teachers have to buy class materials, we have to wonder why on the National Science Foundation projects where STAFF WRITER they purchased it, but I worked for them in the summer,” For other schools, according Schnepp said. to nea.org, more than 90% Now that Schnepp has of teachers have to purchase most of the equipment, he their own supplies. This mostly only has to purchase averages out to about $500 paper and binders, although by the end of the school year. the cost of the equipment is Unless someone is teaching unignorable. without supplies, this can be Science teacher Heather a reasonably sized financial Pe t e r s o n i s t h e s c i e n c e issue that teachers may have department chair and helps to overcome by themselves. decide the budget for the In the department. 2023 State “We get I tend to raid the trash cans and things of the State s e v e r a l address from at the end of the year locker clean out to thousand as a Governor department, get three ring binders and papers and W h i t m e r, like $6000 W h i t m e r ’s things. I spent a lot early in my career or $7000... budget plan we use what is around $4.5 billion higher equipment. we need and decide when than last year’s, making the “All of the equipment was sometimes one class needs budget around $24.1 billion either sweat equity working more one year. Sometimes Eleanor Westmoreland
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dollars for 1.4 million school children. It’s important to consider going forward what this influx of money could go to. Currently, the school budget is split into categories oforeach different school in the Holt Public School system. In the high school specifically, this is split into departments. Math teacher Marty Schnepp does not use many extraneous materials in his class, with exception of a few pieces of
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we go to the store and get reimbursed. Sometimes we want to do something special... and we have to pay for that, ” Peterson said. Science teacher Joshua Abatie also thought this number might be different for other departments. “Science is unique in that there are constant material needs, chemicals, glassware, specimens, etc., that do not parallel other departments, so I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the Science budget is higher than some other departments,” Abatie said. Abatie also talked about his personal expenses. “As far as personal spending goes, I will typically spend $200 or more on my classroom each year. The vast majority of my spending is on perishable goods, food for the food labs
Math teacher Marty Schnepp uses a device in his classroom to teach students. Here, he shows it off to senior Anthony Nyugen. Photo by Eleanor Westmoreland
we do, paper products, utensils, etc., and sometimes on readily available materials that are useful in the lab,” Abatie said. In science classes, because the materials are not permanent and need to be replenished frequently, it likely has a higher budget than other departments. This can be different compared to other classes. In her classes, Fine Arts teacher Patricia Pisano uses a wide variety of materials. “For a full time teacher, for ten sections of art, it was $7500, but they did cutbacks. It’s probably more like $6000,” Pisano said. Pisano also talked about what she spends out of pocket. “I use a lot of my own stuff, but I can reuse some of it year after year. Examples of artwork I can use my own, but I would say at least $250 a year,” Pisano said. Pisano has a drastically different budget to deal with, but she still spends within $50 of the amount that Abatie spends. As seen, teachers always have to either do work or pay at least a tiny amount out of pocket for supplies. If Whitmer’s plan goes through and Michigan gets a higher school budget, then it will be interesting to see how things change . One thing we can do is listen to what the teachers say about what they want to change. “When we built this building, any of the equipment that was installed was supposed to be maintained by the building budget. Equipment like my printing press or the ceramic kilns was supposed to come out of a general fund budget, but in recent years, that story has changed ,” Pisano said. “And those things are supposed to, the way I understand, come out of the art budget… That’s what I would change,changing it back to the way it was.”