It’s the Budget Cuts, Stupid
By Pasadena Independent
Published: Thursday, March 26th, 2009
In recent years, it has often been said that journalism is a dying profession, and the staff of Arcadia High School’s newspaper, the Apache Pow Wow, certainly recognize the difficulties they are facing.
For roughly three years, the Apache Pow Wow has been self-funded in its production process, but legitimizing themselves as a ubiquitous news source seems close to impossible in 2008, a year, frankly, fiscally abysmal for California. The paper perpetually feels the sharp pains of looming budget cuts, which cut notably deeper than the district had been forewarned. Still, students on campus are pondering how it is that a district which receives $60 million annually cannot fund the printing of a monthly paper.
The Arcadia School District’s superintendent, Dr. Joel Shawn, says it is not so simple to fund all facets of the district; rather, there are priorities. Indeed, with 10,000 students and 10 schools to sufficiently fund, he argues they cannot function without them. Recently he was told that the district may have to forfeit $3 million to Sacramento schools; in January, he says, this will be debilitated. Add to that the callous reality that the whole district was put on a spending freeze for equipment last year as a ramification of the statewide budget cuts, and it is clear that Dr. Shawn is right about prioritizing. The freeze carries on this year and he suspects it is the reason that when the paper’s advisor, Mr. Johnny Lee, applied for four new computers, he was denied. Thus, the staff of the school’s newspaper shares utterly out-of-date computers with the yearbook staff.
However, Dr. Shawn offers insight as to how the Apache Pow Wow can expand its funding. His most prominent proposal was something he cites as being already presented to the paper’s department: publishing the paper it in an electronic format. He says if it were to do so, it would be funded by the district. Although, he adds, “Now, I understand the dilemma here: we are in a transformative period of time and people are getting information in lots of different ways and so…you can put anything on the internet and people think it’s true. When you look at something in paper, there is a higher standard of truth.” He then brought up that it would be advisable to “…try to reestablish [the] relationship with Arcadia School Board first of all,” not knowing that Mr. Lee has done that without making great progress. Mr. Lee said, “My understanding of the issue is that the previous advisors put the school in a burden by not paying bills on time and by not fundraising. So to save budget, ASB essentially cut Pow Wow off.” He implied that the relationship cannot be repaired, adding, “It’s a disservice to the school. If it’s something they…cherish and respect, then they should be involved in the funding of it.”
Dr. Shawn ended the interview with a proposal to apply for what he referred to as “mini-grants” through the Arcadia Educational Foundation. He stated, “I think [budget cuts] are going to get really bad. This is absolutely the worst I’ve ever seen it,” so as to recommend that the paper do something to prevent shortages before things do get, as they inevitably will, worse.
Mr. Lee, a bit cynical in the wake of this, agrees to disagree with Dr. Shawn that his propositions are at all likely, saying, “We’re basically that little pimple nobody wants to talk about.” In short, the Apache Pow Wow will, of course, carry on printing as long as it can afford to, while all other facets of the school district are pained by the paucity of money too.
By Emily Litvack
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