Possible cuts at Madison High School could mean that a theater class and new Advanced Placement courses wouldn't be offered next year, Principal Kevin Yancey told a crowd of about 300 Monday night at the school.
Cuts could mean that teacher loads would be so great as to be unworkable, he said, because that already is happening because of previous cuts; one English teacher has 149 students this semester, and at a time that student writing is encouraged, one teacher cannot grade that many papers at one time, he said.
Yancey said dropping Credit Recovery could drive the dropout rate higher. He also said college-bound students could miss deadlines for applications if counselors weren't available to help them.
If the library aide position is cut, Yancey said he will have to close the school library because the librarian position was previously cut and he cannot allow students free roam of the library.
He went item-by-item through a list of possible cuts that were published April 7 in The Madison Courier. All would have a negative impact on the high school.
Dropping the AVID program to prepare 130 mostly low-income students to graduate would mean losing a program that costs $3,000 and has a 100 percent graduation rate. Yancey said he had hoped to expand AVID. Cutting AVID would not result in any teachers losing their jobs and thus save money because they also teach other subjects, he said.
Eighteen eighth-graders want to play football at MCHS next school year, but if the possible cuts to the athletic program take place, 10 students will have to be cut from participating. "I don't know how we're going to compete in the Hoosier Hills Conference," Yancey said.
When the football program needed new uniforms, $26,000 was donated to buy them, he said. Yancey said much of the athletics department's $300,000 budget pays for refurbishing football equipment; left unattended, a student could be injured and the school could be sued, he said. Coaches were paid a total of $48,100 out of the budget, Yancey said.
One common way of saving money is to reduce personnel.
"This is a way to save money," Yancey said. "It is very easy to raise class sizes. ... I can cut teachers if I raise class sizes."
In Student Services, having three counselors means each serves 175 students, but if one of the positions is cut, each of the remaining two would be assigned the additional students, he said.
The community has been wonderful about stepping up with money, said Yancey, who is in his first year as principal. An anonymous donor gave $10,000 to pay for an after-school program named Credit Recovery in which 70 students who have lost credits can make them up. Another gave $3,000 to pay for students from Hanover College to tutor AVID students twice a week. Another, a friend of Yancey's since they grew up in Madison, is going to recarpet the locker room for free.
Declining enrollment is not helping the high school financially, Yancey said. Now that Indiana allows a student from anywhere in the state to attend school anywhere in the state, Madison should be trying to attract students, he said.
"We have to literally market Madison," Yancey said.
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