MURRAY, Utah—
It's the first day of school at Hillcrest Jr. High School and students are excited. They crowded the hallways meeting up with their friends. New students asked directions around the school."I'm just making new friends, helping out the 7th graders and having a good year," said ninth grader Kylee Call.
For educators, however, these are anxious times. Every school in Utah has been impacted by budget cuts in a bad economy. But ask a student about it, and they seem unaware.
"It's more of, like, adult stuff," laughed ninth grader Marni Harbrecht. A student body officer, she was busy working on activities for her fellow students.
Hillcrest Jr. High principal Jennifer Covington has tried to shelter her students from the budget woes and funding cuts.
"We have cut back on field trips. Class sizes have gone up just a little bit," she told Fox 13 on Monday. "But we've tried to hold the kids as harmless as possible because we want to make sure they get the best education they can."
Hillcrest Jr. has asked parents to help out with a few more school supplies. They're holding a book drive to bring in more current titles to help fill empty shelves in the school's library.
"We're trying to get creative," Covington said, praising her teachers for doing what they could to keep budgets in balance. "We're trying to conserve things like paper and those types of things, use a little bit less."
At the Granite School District in South Salt Lake, they had to lop $17 million from the budget. The district avoided layoffs by not replacing those who retired or quit. They also asked employees to pay for health insurance increases. But Granite District spokesman Ben Horsley said they still face economic challenges.
"It's one of those things where each individual teacher has a budget and they can only take that budget so far and you may hear your teacher asking for a little hand-sanitizer here, or maybe asking for assistance for markers or something like that," he said. "Every little bit helps."
