Schools facing $9M in cuts

Sad, when there's a budget crunch, you lay off teachers, but the highly paid administrators get to keep their jobs.
Those in power to spend the money on rehabilitation and prisons rather than being pro active in the education system.

Ms Hamamoto is right to cut those resource teacher positions and workshops. We need more teachers (particularly SPED teachers) in the classrooms---not in offices.

The bad Lingle-Bush economy will haunt Hawaii for years.

Coaches are already under paid for what they do. Back when I was coaching we calculated to be paid about .50 cents per hour. That didnt stop us from coaching because we did it for the athletes. To take away from athletics is a big big mistake and that is why our country is labeled as the leader is obesity. Athletics brings pride to each school and a sense of identity. Safety will be a BIG issue should you not have enough coaches and who to say what sport is not important. All sports are important in a childs life. This is so pathetic!!

Why not cut some of the administrator positions? Why do we need a Board of education and a Dept. of education?

All they try to do is build up thier little kingdoms with friends and family. Remember how Ms. Hamamoto wanted to hire 7 people and set-up a department to conduct drug testing? What a joke

alice wrote:

The bad Lingle-Bush economy will haunt Hawaii for years.

Wow I thought the economy under Lingle has been pretty good up until recently. The Iraq war and unabashed American addiction to cheap credit and oil aside, I guess you have never heard of economic cycles. Why lay all of the blame on Lingle when it is the legislature that draws up the plan on how the majority of the money is spent? Lingle is just looking at the actual revenue forecast for the fiscal year and adjusting accordingly. I personally do not like cuts in education, but when you have a department that gets massive amounts of monies, and still has yet to be held accountable for their actions, why exempt them from the same budgetary requirements?

Cut $9M worth of administrators at DOE. The system would not notice a loss of productivity, actually productivity likely would increase by eliminating a layer or two of administration.

Newtowner wrote:

Cut $9M worth of administrators at DOE. The system would not notice a loss of productivity, actually productivity likely would increase by eliminating a layer or two of administration.

I totally agree with your suggestion. The DOE is presently working with 10 Assistant Superintendents and 15 Deputy Superintendents. Need I go any further to emphasize the fact that the DOE is loaded with so called experts. And where do they want to cut? Naturally the poor people and push them into the poverty level. Our Board of Education is acting like they care but their actions really show us that they are not concerned with the small guy.

Shame on Lingle who does not believe in the future of our children and believes that TBR is more important. If she can find funding for TBR why not our children's future?

true, Lingle is all about Lingle hon. She is the most cynical, devious poltiican out there. She makes even mufi with his organized crime connections look innocent.

Governor Lingle is correct in imposing a 4% restriction on spending to once again give a loud and clear message to the DOE/BOE to trim the heavily loaded 15,000 educational support staff.

Why cut coaches, A+,school lunch???? You just raised school lunch; what we going do, send our kids home unsupervised because we at work and last of all, coaches mentor our kids, our coach comes from Kahuku, go work and then work with the kids after school, what is that? And some of our teachers make our kids feel like they are a burden to them, i not saying can the teachers, but one comment about administrator positions or Board of education, why not lower their salary or something, or down size? You guys no fool around, you just cut the arteries of us parents.

Lingle is dishonest and no one can stand her.

The A+ programs need to be reviewed as some of them have too high of a child to teacher ratio.
The cuts are directed in the wrong place. The athletic programs provide a safe afterschool outlet for the kids. We should cut the admin positions instead. I bet they will need to cut more as the economic conditions worsen. I would like to know what else they plan to cut before they do it. It's our kids so let us have a say.

The cuts should be in the district office and state office... a lot of these people are losers that were taken out of the classroom to minimize damage to the children...the more you screwup the higher you go...thanks to the unions...lol

I agree..put the money in the classroom anbd athletic field.

alice wrote:

Lingle is dishonest and no one can stand her.

Governor Lingle is not the bad guy. She is only acting responsibly in imposing the 4% restriction on spending. The bad guys are the DOE administrative staff of 15,000. As mentioned in one of the posts in this forum, why not undersize. Also, tell the malnourished child that there is no food left on the table. The DOE is cruel.

If they can find money for a rail system, they can find money to educate the children. Education should never take a cut. Other countries go all out for education, which is why Japan is the leading in some of the current technology. Children are the future. If you invest nothing, you get nothing.

Like everything in govt, there are to many entitlement programs. everyone is protecting their rice bowl. the teachers want more pay, the parents want more special education for their child, the state wants drug testing, other parents want cheap meals/transportation, health professionals want more phys ed. Whether you have a kid or not going to public school, as a tax payer you are paying for this. Maybe they should just come up with a formula that automatically kicks in. For example. Everytime a new cut/initiative comes down teachers salaries has to absorb 10%, DOE salaries absorbs 40%, principal/administrators salaries 10%, special ed absorbs 20%, meals absorb 10%, and afterschool programs absorb 10%. or some sort of formula. that way every one feels it as oppose to the board listening to sad sob stories and shooting from the hip.

we are resilient people, get your complaining out of your system and lets work together and make the best of it for our children.

The DOE is smart. They make sure that the areas that they cut have almost no political connections. That is why they pick on me the so called small guy in our society. The DOE bureaucrats are driving me to the ground.