Heritage High School students and employees are feeling the effects of the state’s budget crisis at the cost of $3.8 million to $5 million in cuts.

In January, the school board released a list of projected services and staff that needed to be reduced to meet the first $1.25 million in cuts. The majority feature small and often practical changes, such as shutting down stadium lights after 7 p.m. and enrolling unit-deficient seniors at Independence High School.

“This is just the first round as we had scheduled an incremental process toward reaching our current target of $3.8 million,” Superintendent Jerry Glenn wrote to district employees in an e-mail.

Job loss is the topic of main concern for employees of the district. A recent estimate conducted by the Liberty Education Association states that 43.5 teachers will have to be laid off next year, roughly 10% of the teachers currently employed.

In February, the school board met to unveil the updated list of actions. In 2010-11 and beyond, students are going to witness the state’s financial crisis first hand. Major changes may include furlough days, removing an SLC, reducing the number of counselors on campus to two, eliminating one level of play in sports, increasing class sizes in freshman English and integrated algebra, and removing many of the staff stipends for extra-curricular activities.

“Hopefully it need not be said that the superintendent does not embrace any of these cuts, and there is no doubt our educational program will suffer as a result of them, but we simply need to find savings somewhere to remain fiscally solvent,” Glenn wrote in his e-mail.

These changes will be visible in everyday campus life. Students wishing to talk to their counselors will be met with long wait lines and have less of a say in which classes they are assigned. Competition for sports team positions among athletes will be raised to a new level, as the J.V. team may be removed, keeping only teams at the frosh-soph and varsity level. The trickle-down effects of the cuts will affect varsity programs, which will eventually suffer because fewer kids are playing and advancing their skill levels at the J.V. level.

District employees are concerned about the discussion of furlough days: five scheduled days of the school year that would be removed to save money in employee’s paychecks.

While current freshman English and math classes have an average of 24 students to every teacher, next year the ratio could be raised to an average of around 34 or 35 students per class. Larger class sizes will not only affect students’ learning, it will require fewer teachers.

Dr. Parsons said that the most troubling effect is “always losing teachers and other staff members. “We just hired a bunch of great new teachers.”

Teachers hired within the last four years are at the highest risk to receive pink slips and be out of work this coming school year. However, Dr. Parsons believes that the abundance of popular English-based electives such as literary analysis, creative writing, literary analysis through film, yearbook and journalism may allow teachers in the English Department to continue teaching at Heritage. While most school districts are losing enrollment, Heritage is projected to grow 2% this coming year.

Teachers and students involved in performing arts have long been used to a lack of funding for their programs. Teachers involved in extracurricular activities are paid stipends to reward them for their commitment and time spent working with aspiring athletes and artists. The budget currently being proposed may remove the payment of stipends to these committed individuals.

This year will prove a test for the school’s drama director, Chris Fallows.

“In the past we fundraised for music, vocal and choreographers stipends. Raising $3,000 dollars more is difficult,” he said.

Fallows is worried how he will be able to make his mortgage payments and get by these next couple of years. He is afraid that the theater program may not be able to put on the amount of shows it has in the past if these measures are approved. Fallows claimed he believes in the Union philosophy that “If I don’t get paid, I won’t do the job.”

“The government is not making wise choices,” Parsons said, but he does believe that the budget will flatten out within the next few years.  “This will blow over, (but until then) it’s my job to protect the staff and kids.”