Dear President,

I am a student in High school, and by no means, do I know everything about the financial problem of the US. Money problems for the US didn’t really bother me until recently. Since I am a high schooler I know the cost of books is high and so are the lunches. These are just things that a student has to worry about. The Principal and the Superintendent have many worries of financial problems on their own.

I have been in the same system since kindergarten. I had never seen our schools cut classes until 5th grade, and when they did start to cut classes it was classes like cooking and sewing. I never really thought much about it until the books for class started to look like they haven’t been new for 15 years. Also when I used to get free lunch it turned into a reduced lunch instead. My parents work hard to keep a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my back. Now they also have to worry about being able to put me through school with prices slowly rising. I started to think “If they got rid of those classes what’s the next classes they will cut when funding goes down again? Will they cut the foreign language classes? If I had to go from free to reduce, what about the other kids that need to have free lunches?”

Since I have been thinking about these issues I decided to look up how many schools have had funding cut back. I discovered 31 states had budget cuts in 2014 and this number is rising. Of those 15 states had budget cuts up to 10%. That is 10% that could have gone to the books or to help students with their costs. That 10% could have kept a child from having to go home hungry or having to worry about the cost they owe the schools for books. The kids paying full cost for lunches were the minority but now that has started to change. Kids are starting to lose their free and reduced lunch.

The students aren’t the only ones that are affected by the lack of funds. The sports teams are also greatly affected. If the school doesn’t have enough funds they can’t maintain the places where the sports teams practice and play games. Recently our tennis courts are starting to get cracks and what about the soccer field has a lot of holes and mounds. But the school doesn’t have the money to fix them. If a student on the team is hoping for a scholarship based on his or her athletic ability, and they can’t get it. If they lose due to the unmaintained conditions of the field or courts they have a less likely chance of getting the scholarship to those teams that won more due to their courts or fields. This could also happen to the swim team, volleyball, basketball, and football.

As I see these horrible things happening I’m unable to do a lot, but any contribution helps. If this paper gets your attention and raises your awareness then I have done my part to help. So I leave it to you to help our schools and protect our futures.

Sincerely,

Katelyn