Students, Parents Protest School Budget Cuts

Hundreds of students and Bensalem district employees turned out wearing the Owls’ colors—blue and white—to ask board members not to cut all extracurricular activities for the sake of the school budget, according to phillyburbs.com.

The problem is that the district has anywhere from a $5 million to $12 million deficit going into the 2013-2014 school year depending on the scenario it follows. (One of the preliminary budgets is attached, and more recent versions are available on the district’s website.)

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But the board directed the administration to fix that $12 million gap without raising taxes, phillyburbs reported earlier this week. To do that would mean cutting more than 70 teaching positions and virtually all sports, clubs and extracurricular activities.

That is why parents and students turned out to speak up.

Superintendent David Baugh also said Wednesday the all the proposed cuts and the 0 percent tax increase mandate would “ultimately lead to the catastrophic failure of the Bensalem Township School District,” phillyburbs reports.

The public comment went on for hours, and though on board member, Matthew Grodsky, agreed the proposed cuts were “ridiculous,” he still thought a 0  percent tax increase was possible.

A petition on change.org has also been started to protest the budget cuts. As of Thursday, it had 509 signatures.

The next budget work session is May 8 at 6:30 normally scheduled in the district offices.

Read the complete Phillyburbs story here:
Hundreds turn out in Bensalem to protest potential school cuts