The budgetary problems have created changes in many departments on the Taft High campus. I.T. and Physical Education are among these programs. Mr. Morris, President of the Teacher’s Union, was also able to give input on the concerns with the financial issue at hand.

Morris didn’t have too much to give when it came to the concerns affecting teachers. He said, “We won’t know that until later; we hope not.” He was also asked about the budget concerns affecting students, his response was, “We know the best thing for students is good teachers in the classroom, so if we have to reduce teachers, yes.” If Taft High does end up cutting teachers to cut costs in the future, the reduced amount of teachers could have a negative impact on students.

Brian Durkan was able to give some information about the financial concerns inciting change into the P.E. department. He said, “The budgetary concerns have affected all departments including PE/Health. Our department must be much more creative in how we do business, and we have to scale back some activities due to budgetary constraints. It really is a matter of choosing needs vs. wants.” The P.E. department is suffering the effects of the budget concerns.

We were also able to get a follow-up with the I.T. department. We were able to talk to the head of the I.T. department, Stacy Meadows, about what the concerns were causing. She replied, “Not filling Tom Brown’s position has affected the department: The IT department staff is working together to insure that all needs of the staff and students are maintained. Sometimes, we are not able to complete tasks as quickly as we previously did. For example, we now have to prioritize our ‘To Do’ list and are not always able to respond to requests immediately. The goal of the department remains the same and that is to support the district technology needs with the resources we are allocated. We are trying not to cut support, but rather cut back or delay responses as needed in areas that are not urgent requests. We have a great group of employees that have risen to the occasion and have been willing to learn and cross-train to fill the void left with the vacancy of the previous position. We have tried to streamline and automate some of the job duties where possible.” Meadows continued, “We will continue to examine what we do and see how we can reorganize to provide the needed services on a more realistic timeline.” Tom Brown left Taft High’s I.T. department to work at Taft City School District. With the future of technology use growing every year, the I.T. department is needed to support student learning and district operations.

Another area that will be noticeably different this year will be summer school. So far, we know that Drivers Education is not on the list of courses offered during summer school. We don’t know if the class will be offered during the regular 2018-2019 school year. We will continue to bring updates as we receive more information.