FACS funding limits class opportunities

Jasper Winterton
Feature Editor

facs graphic — Freshman Nastia Flypiuk works on a donation project in fashion design. Photo by Jasper Winterton

“(Family and Consumer Science department) only has money for culinary classes; we have (no money) for sewing supplies,” Amie Shea, FACS teacher, said.

As far back as 2015, the FACS department has struggled with maintaining the limited amount of money given to it by the school. The department includes 15 different classes, but the main ones facing the issue are the foods and fashion design classes.

“We were running out of money and going over budget since 2015, and since then, we’ve added another full time teacher,” Shea said.

The addition of the new teacher has made the distribution of money even more sparse, with only $272 per class going towards cooking, leaving money for five foods and nutrition courses, and none for fashion design.

Not only does this make it difficult for students to get the opportunities available at other schools, but it also directly impacts the teachers.

“There are times where students need fabric and supplies, and I purchase those, no questions asked, so we, with our personal money, will just buy it or we will buy it from our department,” Shea said. She added no student is left out due to the department funding, even if that means teachers spending personal money to buy them supplies. On the other hand, certain departments in some STL County schools, including ours, go as far as charging students money to do lab work, known as a lab fee.

“I know that there are other departments that charge a lab fee- that’s actually not legal, but I think that’s a common practice because it is so expensive, so sometimes kids will make a really big project, which is really costly, and the kids will have to pay a fee,” Shea said. Due to the demand for supplies and how quickly classes run out of it, regarding consumables and things like wood, some schools resort to making students pay them to do certain projects.

“So there’s kind of a historical allocation to departments that they get, and there’s some weird variables in it,” Dr. Matt Irvin, principal, said. The money given to each department in the school is mostly based on how much has worked in the past, though with inflation, they can’t always just judge off of that, so they try to adjust as needed.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2023, all food prices were predicted to increase by 5.8%, and in 2024 predicted to increase by 2.9%.

“One variable is what’s the budget of the building- is it going up or is it going down. If the budget expands, everybody gets a raise so to speak; if it contracts, everyone gets a contraction,” Irvin said.

“We have $6,000 for our entire budget of supplies for the year, which is for the entire department. It hasn’t changed since 2017 when I started here,” Shea said.

“The middle school department has (about) $13,000, and Kirkwood has $22,000, and I’m just confused why the middle school has $13,000,” Shea said. Hixson’s FACS department is given over double the amount of money of the high school FACS department, while having fewer classes, students and teachers to manage.