My ambition when I first became your principal at West Jadico Senior High School was to bring students the very best education this state can offer. But unfortunately, my job instead during the last couple of years has been to cut the budget. Some of you students even noticed changes that we thought were invisible, such as when we brought in prisoners to teach home economics.

I'm afraid that trend will continue this year, as the economy remains limp and the government slows funding. Many of you may worry this will cheapen your education or at least create incidents such as when one of our “guest” teachers in home ec last year showed how to turn celery sticks into a rough but effective brandy.

But we've found some creative solutions, and I believe that students can learn as much in the classroom as they did before, or at least spend about the same amount of time there.

MATH

Students who study their algebra books closely may notice that many more numbers than usual have been replaced by X and Y – to the point where none of the problems can be solved and no one will pass this course.

We have found, however, that books that frequently use X and Y as variables cost less than books with real numbers because variables have no assigned value.

SOCIAL SCIENCE

Using an interdisciplinary approach that employs psychology, statistical analysis and several pie charts, Mr. Eagerton will tell students why he doesn't have any friends.

SPANISH

We will have to share textbooks with three other townships. Goldthwaite Middle School in Goldthwaite Township will get the first four chapters of the books, which means they will learn the present tense. Brian Hill Senior High in central Olenyn will get chapters five through nine, in which they will learn past and future tenses. That just leaves us with chapter 10, the subjunctive mode.

While children in nearby towns will be able to speak of things as they are or were, students here will learn to talk about how things would be if everything were different.

LIFE SCIENCES

We cannot afford any pictures of plants, invertebrates or lower mammals. The only living things students will study this year are super models.

PHYSICS

Students will gather at the janitor's room and play with matches.

ENGLISH LIT

Last year, we had to make do without vowels. But students still turned in lively book reports about F. Scott Fitzgerald's Th Grt Gtsby and J.D. Salinger's Ctchr n th Ry. This year, we will only read book jackets. Students will be expected to read at least three adjectives a New York Times book reviewer used in describing Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.

HISTORY

Students may have noted a gradual decay in our history classes last year when our survey course “History of Western Civilization” had to be renamed “History of Every Second or Third Day of Western Civilization.” This year, all we can offer is “History of Every Second Friday.” As a result, the course will skip several notable dates – a good example being Dec. 7, 1941, which fell on a Sunday. Our textbook jumps right from Dec. 5, 1941, when the Football Writers Association of America was organized, straight to Dec. 19, when a U.S. submarine had already sunk a Japanese ship and the federal government created the Office of Censorship to control war information. Students will have to infer for themselves what the problem was.

Also, the textbook doesn't go past 1962. History in this class will end with the TV premiere of The Beverly Hillbillies, which indeed is when history ended in real life.

GEOGRAPHY

At age 18, students will be shown the exits.