Bend-La Pine Schools firming up budget plans
Bend-La Pine Schools is working to finalize its budget for the next school year, and officials said Tuesday evening it’ll look largely like the budget for the current year.
Even with the Oregon Senate this week approving a new education tax, those funds, if signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown, would not become available until the following school year.
That said, the school district said it still wants to work toward creating better opportunities for students and staff during the next school year.
School Board Chairman Andy High said he wants to make sure the district’s taking steps to cut down class sizes and improve education.
“We’re going to focus on reducing those class sizes — that’s key,” High said. “We know that reducing that burden on our staff workload will not only help our students be successful, but our staff enjoy coming to work and working together as a team.”
At this point, the district still does not know how much money it will get from the state.
High said any additional revenue the board gets or is able to create will go toward reducing those class sizes.
He added he would not only like to see the district work to create smaller class sizes, but also create better resources for students.
High said he wants more fully funded programs throughout the district, as well as bringing an added focus to the health of students.
“What we want to do is have the whole district as excellence, and so, the hope is maybe we can expand in areas that we are just doing at one school, maybe we can expand that to three or four high schools now versus just one,” High said. “So those dollars will all help with the class sizes to helping our students be successful in the world today.”
High said being able to find more funds would greatly help the district focus on the specific needs of the schools it runs.
The 2019-20 district budget was approved by the budget committee at Tuesday night’s meeting and is set to officially be adopted at the school board meeting on June 11.
