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Hernando Today

District Elementary Science Fair Funds Cut

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By LINNEA BROWN

Hernando Today

Published: June 11, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - For the first time in decades, there will be no districtwide science fair next year for local elementary school students.

The annual competition between winners of various schools' competitions costs the district several thousand dollars that will be unavailable in the district's 2008-09 budget, officials said last week.

While the fate of the district-level competition for middle and high school students is yet to be decided, there will be no "next step" for students in grades 3-5 who win at their individual school competitions.

And that's bound to be disappointing for students, said Lisa Spencer, a science fair coordinator and third-grade teacher at Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics in Spring Hill, where the district's fair was held this year.

"I haven't told the kids," she said. "I think for a lot of them, they will be very upset. A lot of them really strive to be at the top."

Students at many of the district's schools spend months preparing their projects, and many students pour countless hours into perfecting their experiments.

Some of the more notable projects that advanced to districts in February included projects involving gravity and environmental topics, such as water pollution and air quality.

"There were a lot of really interesting environmental things being done," Spencer said.

At Challenger, students spend two months on their projects, with much teacher feedback along the way and various assignment deadlines as the event approaches.

Coordinators also hosted a parents' night at the school to answer questions and inform parents about the possibility of advancing to districts - a possibility that many students worked extra hard for, she said.

"The kids really enjoy it," Spencer said. "They get trophies, and get to be among (students) from all the other schools and get recognized for their efforts."

Now, the quality of students' projects may suffer without the incentive to move on to the district level, and that students will not be as well prepared for districts when they reach middle school, Spencer said.

"With districts (in elementary school), middle schoolers know what's expected of them," she said. "It's so much easier for those teachers to teach them."

But eliminating the district-level fair for elementary school students will save the district money previously budgeted for the fair's awards, transportation and coordinators at each school and the district, as well as substitutes brought in the day of the event, said curriculum specialist Elaine Wooten.

"We've left money in the budget to support site-based science fairs, but we are in a serious situation and have been looking at ways to cut things that don't affect instruction," she said. "We are living in a situation, financially, that we've never been in before."

The budget is expected to be tight for programs across the district, with officials having to roll back numbers to the amount spent during the 2006-07 school year due to a worsening economic climate.

Officials are in the process of hiring a new science-based curriculum specialist who will be looking ways to strengthen fairs at individual schools and what changes need to be made, Wooten said. Curriculum specialist Dave Schoelles said the district spends as much as $20,000 for the middle and high school district-level history and science fairs.

However, they may be in danger of being cut, as well, he said.

"At this point, we don't know," he said. "We have a budget proposal that included them originally, but we don't know what will happen in the next round of budget negotiations."

Reporter Linnea Brown can be reached at 352-544-5289 or lbrown@hernandotoday.com.

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