Venomous Agenda Memoirs

Chapter 28: Budgeting considerations

On the morning of July 4, Faith and Valerie are brought to the parochial radio station for what has become a parish tradition whenever some student from the parish makes it to MOP, whereby any MOPper announces their TSTST results on air, and the parochial newspaper starts tracking the race to the IMO. Valerie goes live first:

"Dear Jefferson Davis parishioners, I am Valerie Watkins, a rising senior at Venomous Agendas High. On the Fourth of July, I have bad news for you. I didn't make it to the top-thirty at the TSTST this year. It was fun while it lasted" Valerie then hands off the mic to Faith.

"I am Faith Kingsford, a rising junior at Venomous Agendas High. Because I finished twentieth at the TSTST, and fourth among girls, for the third season in a row, we have a Venomous Agenda girl in the race to the IMO!"

Yet Glen has yet to receive the answer from the legislature regarding the budget requests under the EEF and the MSPGO.

It's too late for this year, but VA getting girls in the race to the IMO 3 years in a row must not be done at the expense of the other schools in the parish! At the same time, I'm afraid that the parish won't even see one school consistently getting girls to compete in the race to the IMO as a sign of intra-parish instructional inequality for MSPGO purposes, but a sign that the whole parish doesn't need state money beyond EEF and MFP. Or really, they might not even know what the IMO is; however, the legislators in Bâton-Rouge know about the EGMO because my predecessor made requests under MSPGO by using the EGMO as a sign of math disparity. That netted us a grand total of $100k. This year, there's a grand total of $25 million each up for grabs under MSPGO and EEF, Glen reflects on the actual dollar amounts he expects to obtain from these 2 grant programs. In a region as impoverished as southwest Louisiana, every dollar in state money counts, and even another $100k can make a difference. However, VA will be last in receiving any of the EEF and MSPGO monies.

To say nothing from the actuarial reports regarding pension expenses and liabilities the parish will incur in the coming year, or the reports regarding the forecasts of sales and property tax revenues. However, since the parish office is closed on July 4, he's waiting on their answer.

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Upon return from the parish radio station, the family gathers around the breakfast table but abstains of discussing EEF and MSPGO.

"Valerie, who do you feel is most likely to anchor VA's high school quiz bowl team this season?" Glen asks his daughter about something unrelated to college or mathletics for once.

"I'm not sure. Half the roster left last year, and the remaining players are nowhere near Anna's level. So maybe someone coming in from the middle school division's quiz bowl team, in which case Myriam could make the A-team, but Myriam is, again, not quite on Anna's level yet" Valerie answers her father to the best of her ability.

"Myriam? She's a mathlete, too... and even though several of our opponents proceed that way, the cold, hard truth is that stacking too many mathletes on a quiz bowl team is a recipe for disaster on the buzzer" Selena points out.

Archbishop Rummel and Captain Shreve used to proceed that way a few years ago, nowadays Iowa is the school that keeps stacking mathletes in quiz bowl. As a result, even Kinder, despite poorly performing themselves (and that Anna will undoubtedly bolster), was able to beat Iowa at various quiz bowl tournaments last season.

"If Myriam was to play quiz bowl, is there a debater that could balance it out?" Glen asks the two of them.

"Daisy once told me that, even though debaters often have weaknesses in math, there are no guarantees that, if you were to get a debater to play quiz bowl, they will actually be strong in anything other than math and science. We might have been able to make it work, but balancing a mathlete with a debater is a risky move at best" Valerie explains to her parents. "There might not even be a willing debater, and even then, that player would probably be a lazy Congress player or something"