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Low Hanging Fruit And Its Effects On The Education Of School Districts

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Virtually every school district in the country has been or is currently facing the need to reduce their budget. In the last two years, budget cuts have become far more common in school districts than ever recorded. Some schools are able to cushion the effects of the reductions by shifting fundings around or pulling out reserves, but there is no debate to the fact that these cuts have, in one way or another, a negative impact on the education of students in school districts.
Some strategies to reduce fundings in schools are easier to approach rather than others. In many school districts, the emphasis is put unto reducing individual budget line items. An example of one of these convenient strategies is cutting off “low-hanging fruit”. Some fruit trees may have branches with fruits lower to the ground easier for humans and animals to pick off with little effort; this fruit aptly being named “low-hanging fruit.” In budgeting, the term is used to identify items in a budget that might be easily accumulated without significantly disturbing the operation of the school or district. Two common examples include reducing office supplies or increasing the cost of school lunches. The problem with low-hanging fruit is that most of these reductions have barely any impact on the overall budget, with little to no change in the budget whatsoever. As no process to reduce budgets is described as ideal, some districts are able to off-put the adversity of the cuts this way, but these practices

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