For years, parents, teachers and students have been talking about the lack of funding that is provided in schools. According to an article written on May 24, 2017 by Steve Buckstein for Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon public schools paid $13,230 per student in public school. In North Clackamas School District, the district is paying around $244,910,000 in total with around 17,000 students attending the schools in North Clackamas School District. The total number of funds that the district is receiving this year is $193,894,564. That is a difference of $51,051,436 between the amount of money paid per student and the money that the district obtains. On top of this, the school is also $15.3 million dollars in debt, and has arranged to spend $47,291,849 in debt services, which is how much they are going to try to pay off the debt. With the debt, the school most definitely lacks funds in order to pay for students and teachers alike. Ignoring the massive number of debt, and focusing more on the schools way to pay it, combined with the amount the district pays per student, they pay a total of $292,201,849, which is over the budget for this year by $98,307,285. This leaves no money for paying the staff and teachers that actually work at the school

With the staff, North Clackamas School District is planning to leave $110,261,167 in order to pay the teachers in the school. Now, ignoring the math done in the previous paragraph, the budget for the school is $193,894,564. With the teacher’s salaries, that leaves the district with $83,633,397 in order to pay for the students and also debt services. Subtracting the amount the district pays per student, that is $244,910,000, that leaves the district with -$161,276,603 left to deal with debt payments, which adds up to -$113,984,757. In total, the school is paying $402,463,016 in order to pay for students, teachers and debts, which is $208,568,452 over the actual budget. But, what does this mean for students?

With the school district having less funds, this can affect students on a grand scale. It means that teachers have less money in order to pay for supplies that are necessary for their lessons, and also lack of classes that are in the more specific interests, as Jack Herrington says, who is a volunteer for the North Clackamas School District and has worked with elementary schools in California. It also means that extra-curriculars would be cut, such as things like marching bands, drama clubs and many other clubs that rely on school funding in order to stay alive. Other effects are class sizes increasing and “students who need to get one on one help with class material (specifically math class), the line of students waiting to ask the teacher a question was so long that they often ran out of time” as Tom Ugulini puts it, who is another volunteer at North Clackamas School District, and has been for seven years.

This is also an issue that is more than how much the government gives school districts. It is also an issue involving parents and society. Jack Herrington said, “It’s a multivariate problem; teaching doesn’t pay enough; parents aren’t involved enough; society doesn’t prioritize public education; education focuses on tests over skills; etc”, which is to say that the public needs to care more about how public schools are being funded and the same goes with parents.

Funding is an issue that plagues schools throughout the nation that kills creativity within both teachers and students and starts with parents ignoring schools once their child graduates from the school, or just ignoring the school completely. Instead, parents need to help schools and, in turn, their children and the public needs to realize how important public education is to society and how much the lack of funding impacts students both today and in the future.