The levy from a student's perspective

I'm Hannah Leitch, a senior, multi-sport athlete, team captain of the softball team, and past member of the student council at Priest River Lamanna High School. 

Attending this school for the past four years I've experienced the times when the levy passed, and during the past couple years when it hasn't. As a student it has been extremely hard not only for us, but for the teachers as well. Our teachers are having to buy their own supplies and are relying on donations from generous members of our community, because our schools are not provided enough supplies to make it through a whole school year.

As a student it has been extremely heartbreaking to attend the past couple years. It's very hard coming back to school after summer break to find one of your favorite staff members had moved to a different school because they were cut due to our district's money issues, or that a class you were excited to take your senior year is not offered anymore because we cannot afford it. No student at any age should have to worry about this. 

It is extremely important for the well-being of our schools and community that our levy passes this spring. The levy provides us more funds for the following: Curriculum materials (classroom supplies/ furniture), AP/ payroll clerk, child nutrition funding, technology, snow removal, new buses, extra and co- curricular activities (including transportation for the events) custodians, our school resource officer, Stg. Davis, etc.  

As an athlete, sports also look a lot different this year. For starters every athlete has to pay an additional fee of $100 for every sport they play along with the $50 ASB fee. I have multiple teammates who have struggled paying this fee, resulting our athletic teams losing players. We have to come up with our funding for new helmets, balls, uniforms, pom poms, bats, nets and everything else needed every year to play a sport that is usually covered, this includes busing. If we don't come up with the money for a bus to a sporting event, we have to drive ourselves, rely on our parents, or other teammates to get to said events. This year the softball team only has two buses taking us to away games, meaning we all will have to pay for gas to and from our school sporting events, which no other team in the area has to deal with. A couple of my teammates on the cross-country team made it to state this year and got to ride with the Timberlake cross-country team so they didn't have to drive themselves as a result of not being able to afford buses. Same with the football team. I was a cheerleader therefore I had the ability to go to state with them, and we were extremely lucky to have a member of the community who donated the money for charter buses. As a player on the softball team at PRLHS, we have been doing everything we can to raise the amount of money needed for everything this season. All the time that other teams spend practicing and improving, we have to spend fundraising for simple things like busing to games. 

Another big result of our levy not passing, is we had to close the junior high school and move those students to the high school building. As a student in the school, I understand why this decision was made but I can also say that I do not believe it is working. Developmentally it is not a good thing for the junior high students to be around the high school students as often as they are. It makes the younger girls try to keep up with the beauty standards that high school teenagers follow, and I see their behavior every single day. They try to impress the high schoolers by acting older than they are which eventually ruins their self-esteem. And the boys try to copy what the upperclassmen are doing to impress them, and it makes them rowdier and they cause more chaos. 

I've witnessed high school students dating junior high students. The already crowded hallways have twice the number of students, making it nearly impossible to walk. High schoolers have been losing privileges because of the junior high students' actions, and it starts fights. A majority of the high school students have agreed on this, and it is unfair to us trying to learn while there is an uncontrollable junior high student screaming in the hallways. It is also unfair to our teachers who have chosen to teach high school students that are forced to have junior high students in their classrooms. 

Art for example. I was very excited to finally be able to take ceramics my senior year, but this year I haven't had the ability to because our one art teachers' class periods are taken by seventh and eighth grade art. We students don't deserve this. 

We should not have to worry about half the issues we do. It takes a village, but our village is not on our side. As a community we should be supporting the students of Priest River, because we will be the next generation taking care of and running the community. We deserve a good education with proper funding, to learn as much as possible and thrive in our years to come. 

HANNAH LEICH

Priest River