#Education
Target:
Governor of Wisconsin: Scott Walker
Region:
United States of America

We are several seventh graders at Alexander Middle School in Nekoosa. We would like to express a few concerns about this new budget plan that may affect our schools. A few students at our school have heard news that he has proposed some new budget cuts to schools across the state. We have been told that he plans to cut $127 million in funding to schools, including ours. This plan includes getting rid of the current $150 per student fund that schools have received over the past two years.

Although this doesn’t seem like much, it makes a large difference to us. In order to successfully provide for the students' needs, AMS uses any and all money possible that they receive. This includes extra staff, extracurricular activities, and much needed classroom materials that teachers can’t afford to pay for on their own. If this money is taken away, we may not be able to have classes kids enjoy, such as art and music.

Without art and music, students would not be able to express their creativity. These classes allow students to take a small, much needed break from their busy, and stressful day. Although they aren’t exactly academic classes, students enjoy these more than anything.Over 50% of students in the district are involved in some type of music program such as band and choir. Our generation is going to pass our knowledge on to the next, and school is the best time to learn that knowledge. Without music in the schools, students won’t be able to learn skills to pass on to future generations. One of our fellow students told me that “Music lets me escape from reality, and is a stress reliever. These classes are a filler to me in life, and without them I'm not sure where I would be in life.” What would our world be without music?

What about extracurricular activities like Physical Education and sports? Sports and Physical Education are extremely important to students. Sports on one hand let students have a fun end to their day. They get to go to different towns and schools with friends to have a little competition. Physical Education on the other hand, gives students a chance to run around and have fun before returning to classes.

Without this money, schools like ours will not have enough money to pay for extra teachers, cutting our staff low. This starts to become a problem when we don't have enough staff to go around, and classes start to get larger. One teacher in a class of thirty students isn't enough to get around to everyone in need. With this, students may start to fall behind making it harder for schools to measure up to the standards.

Another thing that has been heard about the budget plan, is the money saved is all going to property tax relief. This will benefit the wealthy. Doesn't it make more sense to give money to benefit a child's education, rather than make it benefit people who have everything they need already? There is also a rumor that the saved money would also be going towards building a new NBA stadium in Milwaukee. In our opinion, we believe we should take care of children's needs before wants.

Although these cuts are not guaranteed to happen, no school would like to have to risk having to go that route. We hope you take these concerns into consideration when looking over the 2015-17 state budget plan. Thank you for taking time to read this letter, we greatly appreciate it.

We, the undersigned, call on the governor of WI to eliminate his current idea for the 2015-17 school budget plans.

We deeply care for the students' needs, and would like to help in part to take action.

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The Stop Scott Walker's 2015-17 school budget plan petition to Governor of Wisconsin: Scott Walker was written by Hailey B and is in the category Education at GoPetition.