Hillsboro School District faces budget cuts

The Oregonian reported that the Hillsboro School District faces a “big budget cut” for 2011-2012.   It seems the district will have to tighten its belt and it is looking for ways to do this.
I couldn’t help but wonder how much money is spent on “diversity” by the school district.  On the districts website is a table showing budget cuts, and increases, by category as compared to prior years.  I found it interesting that “No further expansion of Espanol para Ti” is considered a “budget cut”.  Since when is a lack of expansion a “cut”?  I suspect the answer is that it is a “cut” when the Hispanic student population is growing.  The document also states that:

Programs and personnel funded by grants—like special education, migrant education and Title 1—are largely untouched in a budget cutting situation, as money from those grants cannot legally be used to offset shortfalls in the General Fund.

No doubt both “special education” and “Title 1” (which means programs for “at-risk” children) are focused disproportionately on Hispanic students.  “Migrant education” is certainly just a euphemism for “government handouts for illegal immigrants and their children”.  So, regardless of the state of the economy – and no matter how much the rest of us suffer – these programs cannot be touched.
Despite the budget shortfall, the list of increases to last year’s budget is a fairly long one.   Included are the following items:

1 FTE licensed for the Office of Hispanic Outreach (funding from grant sources ended in 2005-06)
8 FTE classified targeted to provide bilingual support in campus front offices
2 FTE classified to accommodate student population growth needs
1.17 FTE classified allocated to Miller Education Center to accommodate program needs and support expanded enrollment…
1 FTE classified for the Office of Hispanic Outreach…
$20,000 allocated to increase support for translation services for Spanish and other languages…
8 FTE classroom teachers to serve as literacy, math, science and ESL coaches at the 14 non-Title elementary and secondary schools…
2.35 FTE classroom teachers to reduce the caseload of English as a Second Language (ESL) specialists…
3 FTE classified Hispanic Outreach staff – moved from grant funding
1 FTE classified Daycare/Teen Parent position to meet state mandated child/adult ratio requirements

“Expanded enrollment” means “to accommodate the population growth due almost entirely to immigration from Mexico” since, without such immigration, there is no population growth in the U.S. to speak of.  Hillsboro has a very large Mexican population.  As for teen parents, I’ve already explained, in a separate post, that this is a largely Hispanic phenomenon.  Perhaps I missed it, but I could not find any actual reductions in funding to any programs that are primarily focused on diversity.  It would appear that Hillsboro students could be reduced to scratching their lessons in the dirt – but “diversity” will still be fully funded.
On another note,  superintendent Mike Scott says:

“The last couple of years, we’ve been trimming away at the budget…  We’re at the point now where it’s not trimming anymore. It’s changing the way we’re doing business.”

One of the things that annoys me about government is the way they attempt to disguise what they do by referring to their activities as “business” and their victims as “customers”.  In my mind, a “business” is a consensual activity where one party agrees to sell, while another agrees to buy.  A “customer” is a person who chooses to avail himself of a good or service.  By using such terminology, Scott seeks to fool homeowners into believing that the property tax they pay is a voluntary affair.  We all know what happens to the homeowner who chooses to cease being a “customer” of the school district: his home will be seized and he will end up living under a bridge – where a different set of government goons will probably harass him for other reasons.