Planting Trees and Pruning Deficits

I am one angry and confused Newport Mesa student regarding policies that control educational funding. The system is laying off 58 teachers in order to balance the more than $7-million district deficit, at the same time that it is spending thousands of dollars planting palm trees to beautify the campuses.

Lost courses at Corona del Mar, for example, include physics, Spanish, humanities, Western literature and European history. English and the performing arts will be hardest hit.

The aspect that angers me most is the fact that I’ll be missing out on educational opportunities at the very time when a California high school education is already held in low esteem by some Eastern schools.

There should be ways to move money from one fund to another. Money spent to “beautify” the campuses would be better spent beautifying the educational machine inside. Let’s trim the trees, not the teachers.

ROBERT FORSTER

Corona del Mar