You may have seen news stories about cuts in school funding.
These cuts are affecting almost every community in California, and
San Benito County is no exception.
You may have seen news stories about cuts in school funding. These cuts are affecting almost every community in California, and San Benito County is no exception.
I even saw a TV newscast that went into great detail about the cuts and layoffs in Monterey County, and then almost in the same breath described the additional $9 billion that was being requested for the prison system.
Now there’s a set of priorities for the record books.
It seems like almost anybody could figure out that if you screw up our kids’ education, more of them are going to wind up in the prison system, possibly starting with a semi-innocent prank committed out of boredom that lands them in juvenile hall, where they meet kids with more creative and sinister ways to beat boredom.
And if the kids they meet there are intimidating and coercive, bingo, the kid who went in an innocent goof-off comes out a gang member. And society ends up coping with his or her misdeeds for a long, long time.
One of the specific impacts of the state’s current funding formula is that summer school programs will be provided only for kids who failed the high school exit exam. That means that everybody else, from the gifted to the merely bored, will have to find other things to do this summer, and … see above.
Years ago, when I was in school, summer school was less important because two salaries weren’t needed to keep a family afloat. As a result, moms were available to drive us to the pool or to the park, to provide Popsicles, and to come up with other projects that made summer fun.
In Hollister, one of the programs that’s been cut is the summer school band course. The San Benito High Band Boosters have already raised several thousand dollars in sponsorships from relatives and local businesses, but they need at least $3,000 more to make sure the program is run this summer.
Without a summer band program, we will not only have a lot of bored kids to worry about this summer, but I can guarantee you the saxophones are going to sound pretty squeaky by the time fall rolls around.
The other casualty could be the Color Guard program. Those are the kids that march in formation around the band, sporting prop rifles and sabres and giving the performance a heft and majesty it would otherwise lack.
This coming Saturday, the 29th, you can attend the bi-state regional Color Guard competition and enjoy the band music as well as the marching kids while helping to support the band program. Tickets are only $8 for several hours of live entertainment. The festival starts at 6:00 p.m. in the High School’s Mattson gym. Tickets are available at the door.
If you Google the phrase “Baler Band Boosters” you will find more information about how to help the band program, either with a financial sponsorship or by volunteering your time and talents.
It’s really worth it, because the only scary fate to befall a former Color Guard member would be to go to Arcola, Illinois, and join the Lawn Rangers, that town’s formation-marching, lawn-chair tossing and twirling, decorated lawn-mower-pushing entry in the annual Broom Corn Festival. Google that, and you’ll see I’m not making it up.
