TUSCALOOSA, Ala (WIAT) – Tuscaloosa City Schools announced cuts in the Summer Learning program in light of the Ad Valorem Tax failing to pass in September.
“Despite its successes, the system will have to drastically cut back on the program,” TCS said.
Summer learning required $3.3 million dollars of funding last year. COVID funding covered 40% of that budget TCS said, but that money is gone and the city schools can’t afford to support the 3,000 students in the program like they did last year.
“It means that next summer there will be at least nine schools that have no funding for a summer learning program on their campus,” TCS said.
- Verner Elementary School
- Rock Quarry Elementary School
- Tuscaloosa Magnet Elementary & Middle School
- Woodland Forrest Elementary School
- Northridge Middle & High School.
“Just this morning, I told my kids on the way to school that summer learning might not be an option for them this year and they were pretty upset by that,” Randi Hamm said.
Hamm’s two children attended Rock Quarry Elementary. Both her 3rd and 5th grader went to TCS Summer Learning the past three summers.
“My kids absolutely love summer learning,” Hamm said.
The program reinforced what students like Hamm’s children learned in previous semesters.
“That felt like they were going into the next year without two or three months loss of information,” Hamm said.
Third graders who do not meet the standards of Alabama’s Literacy and Numeracy Act will have access to summer learning.
However, TCS has just enough funding for 1,200 students and the program is 22 days – instead of 24.
“We’re just now seeing the first consequences of this referendum not being passed in our community, and it’s devastating,” Rock Quarry Elementary parent Liz Kindred said.
Kindred’s daughter is in first grade at RQE, while summer learning was able to be used “as needed” with her child, she recognized how it can be a bigger, more consistent need for other families in the school system.
“For a majority of our parents – when you have two working parents, summer learning is essential,” Kindred said.
Some parents like the Hamms work full-time, but do have the ability to find alternative childcare, but the question now is if they can find the proper educational supplement during the summer as well?
“Our worries are a little less, what are we going to do with the kids, and a little more of what is the impact going to have on them,” Hamm said.
Both Hamm and Kindred understood if the vote to raise property taxes failed cuts would come. However, they are both disappointed that both of those things came to fruition.
"It's devastating that it didn’t pass, It didn't have to be this way," Kindred said.