In many public schools, such as Naugatuck High School, there is a consistent need to participate in fundraisers in order to meet the status quo for the year’s budget. This need hits both the school overall and its various after school groups alike.

According to the Naugatuck Public Schools’ reported budget on their website, this school year the Naugatuck Board of Education receives a total of $69.7 million budget to distribute to the 12 schools in the district. Of this, forty-three percent is received from the state, while the average for funding from a state is to have 49% of the budget come from the state.

For next year, a projected 39% of the budget will come from the state, lowering their contribution further. As a result, more of the funding is required from local sources and a large portion from the schools’ fundraisers themselves. This leads to many students needing to spend extra time to gather the school’s funds, and less time doing their school work and club activities.

If the state were to increase its participation in the district’s budget then many students could benefit from increased per student support and increased benefits to the staff. This would go a long way for introducing new classes or sustaining ones that may be removed, offering greater variance to students with different needs.

This is also all the more necessary as the number of students with free or reduced lunch is going up from 48% to 55% for next year, demonstrating that the number of students who need financial support is going up, which will place more strain on school budgets.

If the state were to increase their involvement with these public school’s budgets, our schools would see not only a rise in average performance, but the career paths students could pursue would increase and the financial difficulties students themselves face could be reduced significantly.