The journalism program at Brier Terrace Middle School is not going to be offered to students next year.
Brier Terrace teacher Lindsey Shoults confirmed that journalism will not be available to Brier Terrace students next year, along with classes like leadership and other small electives. Due to budget cuts the Edmonds School District is going through, she said, “we can’t justify the cost of paying a teacher to teach these classes when they would otherwise be teaching a core class.”
There will be a dedicated yearbook club next year that will produce the yearbooks for the school, but it is currently unknown if there will be a Journalism club next school year.
However, the yearbook club will be more adult-driven compared to the previous student-driven yearbooks.
Shoults mentioned the McCleary decision, a Washington Supreme Court case from 2012 ruling stating that Washington state was not funding education properly.
This helped push the legislature to act in a way that funded education moving forward, and with the recent global pandemic, the state gave out extra funding to keep schools operating. This didn’t last forever though, and the additional funding will no longer be given to schools starting in Sep. 2024, causing schools to yet again require greater state funding.
Teachers may be laid off, certain programs may no longer be financially supported, and some schools may be closed. This not only affects the Edmonds School district, but it also affects other school districts nationwide.
Brier Terrace Principal Scott Morrison explained that some classes – including music classes – are rising in popularity and this led to other electives to have enrollment fall a bit, and with the budget cuts the school needs to “be as efficient as possible.”
Since Journalism’s enrollment was going down, it was decided that not offering the class and placing students into another elective would be more effective. This would make it so teachers would not need to sacrifice a period for said elective, compared to a core class like English.
Morrison said this would help to keep the number of students in classes consistent. He said that the “Bulldog Brief” website will most likely not be supported, “because there won’t be anybody to maintain it unless a club decides to do it.”
Shoults agreed, and said that maintaining the Bulldog Brief website does cost the school “a sizable amount of money” according to Shoults.
Both of them were sad to see the class go, especially due to budget reasons.
They both said that it is not ideal to operate the journalism class under these conditions, especially with the cost.
They hope that it can continue as a club, should there be enough dedicated students. The Journalism class was keeping the school informed through their website and video announcements and interacting with other students directly with an advice column and an overall active community on the website.
“It’s unfortunate that we as a district are having to go through these cuts,” Shoults said, “It is sad to take away opportunities for enrichment for our students, in general, whatever they may be.”
