Madison High School Students Organize and Push Referendum

Tamira Madsen:

Kaley Stroup has seen the impact school budget cuts have had on classmates and friends at La Follette High School.

Officials at La Follette were forced to drop the Italian language program from the curriculum for the 2008-09 school year, and students had to scramble to restructure their class schedules.

Stroup said elimination of the courses put many seniors like her in a tough situation when thinking ahead to college.

“Their schedules are messed up now because colleges want you to have four years of the same foreign language, and they’ve had to switch to French and Spanish, and it’s thrown things off for them,” Stroup said.

She is part of a group of Madison Metropolitan School District students intent on bolstering community approval for the school referendum so deeper budget cuts won’t have to be made going forward. Leaders of the group hope to have some two dozen students getting out the word about voting “yes” on Nov. 4.

Much more on the 2008 Madison Referendum here.