On Monday August 12, 2013 at 6:30 PM the second Harford County Public Schools Board of Education meeting was held this month to discuss budget plans once more. The HCPS Board of Education proposed to the Maryland State Government for a total budget of twenty-four million dollars for the upcoming school year. Their proposal was denied and forced the Board to make several budget cuts in many areas. Budget was cut in magnet school transportation, all sports cost a fee of fifty dollars, eighty-five teacher positions were cut, teacher retirement fund was lowered, and many other budgets were cut.

Three-hundred people attended the first meeting with one hundred people signed up to speak during the public commentary. At the second meeting only one hundred people attended with 23 people signed up to speak during the public commentary with only a running time of three minutes for an individual speaker and 5 minutes for a group of speakers. Several North Harford Hawks attended the meeting including Katlynn Archer and her parents, Parker Bolstad and his parents, and Geometry teacher Mrs. Shelly Sparks and her son. The public spoke infuriated of the outcome of the Boards decisions that negatively impacted their own daily lives. Most people spoke of how the transportation of all magnet students will no longer be provided. This has become a huge issue to the public and has caused an increase of students leaving the magnet schools.

The biggest shock that was discovered was that cutting the bus transportation only saved the Board zero point one percent of the budget that was not approved. The public argued that there had to be some other place where they can find another zero point one percent.

A North Harford student athlete, Parker Bolstad, spoke of how paying to play a sport has impacted himself and so many others. Public schools are supposed to be free, now students have to pay a fee of fifty-dollars to try out for a sport. Some students now cannot afford to play a sport because their families do not have fifty dollars to spare.

  The HCPS budget was voted on June 10th, 2013 and did not inform the public until mid July. The board speaks of how they have no money to spare while a representative of the Harford County Government spoke and claimed that there was a total capital of thirteen million dollars in the boards’ account that is not assigned to anything.