As many students know, for over the last year, our economy has been in a recession, and as a fault of this recession, our school, as well as hundreds of others throughout the United States, have had to make some major financial cutbacks. For our school of Eastern Hancock, we are yearly provided, by the state, with roughly 6.8 million dollars to properly run and function, but as of this school year of 2009-2010, the school's budget got cut back 0.8 million leaving us only 6 million dollars.

    As a first resort to dealing with this financial loss, the school first cutback in the fall of '09 was to not hire as many new teachers to replace all of last year's retired staff, or other teachers that left the school. The next resort was to decrease the temperature in the school. Other cut backs include enforcing lights being turned off if a classroom is not in use, and no personal refrigerators, microwaves, or any other personal appliances.

     "We used our appliances everyday and they are really missed by the three of us in the office. It seemed like extra work for us to plan how to keep our drinks cold and to heat up our food." said Mrs. Huntzinger about no personal appliances at the school.

    Finally the time had come; the school had to make staff cuts. Fourteen staff positions had been cut, mostly consisting of secretaries, assistants, and 50% of the janitorial staff.