Think you make some big choices in your day? Super-sized or medium-sized, unleaded or premium, paper or plastic. They boggle the mind, these life-changing selections.

No, but really. There are people at this moment that are tormented by the decisions they will have to make, and some of them are barely paid to make those decisions.

Try being a school board member right now. Imagine what it must be like to determine whether to cut a bus route and ask kids to walk a half-mile to school in the middle of winter, or cut soccer and watch kids make a beeline for the neighboring district.
Or imagine being a teacher, and knowing that no matter how well you do your job, there will be no raise this year, or the next, or maybe the next. You might not even have a job next year, let alone a raise.

Take Buchanan Community Schools, for example. Their school board recently held a public input session to produce ideas for filling the $1 million hole in their budget. Suggestions ranged from charging kids to play sports to sharing administrators with other districts. Citizens are beginning to realize that some major changes have to be made to save teachers’ jobs and salvage their children’s quality of education.

Niles and Brandywine are in the same boat. Niles has not made any announcements but has major budgetary constraints in addition to a new superintendent coming on board next year; Brandywine will likely layoff staff, their superintendent has indicated.
Cassopolis citizens formed the Ranger Pride Project to inform the public about a 2.4-mill renewal to renovate and add to one elementary school, creating a K-6 school. It passed Tuesday.

There will never be a major decision made in these schools that everyone will agree on. Let’s just put that out there. Not everyone is going to get what they want. However, officials are going to have to weigh their options, and the most cost-effective ones least detrimental to education will win.

These are all public schools, paid for with your money. Taxes can better your quality of life, although no one enjoys paying them. Schools are just one place that money goes.
So, as taxpayers, parents, grandparents, students, employees and employers, you have a right to your opinion. School board meetings are public, and what happens at those meetings is public information. You can voice your opinions at these meetings or just to a school board member; either way, make your voice heard.

Some big cuts are going to be made in every community in this area, and likely the state. It extends past schools to cities, townships, counties, to law enforcement and transportation. Schools aren’t alone.

So if you have an opinion about what should be cut or not cut let someone know, be it your local or state legislator, a commissioner or board member or even write a letter to the editor.

When the cuts come, don’t claim you never had a say. To sit back and do nothing gets you exactly that – nothing.

Katie Johnson is the managing editor of the Niles Daily Star, Cassopolis Vigilant and Edwardsburg Argus. She can be reached at (269) 683-7713 or at katie.johnson@ leaderpub.com.