Spring Break (March 23-27) will give students, parents and staff plenty of time to consider the news:

The school year got shorter by three days (details on page A1).

Hood River County School Board this week took the sobering, but necessary, step of cutting three days from the 2008-09 school year, including two instructional days.

The school year will end around mid-day on June 9, now that the district has decided to cut June 10-11, the final two days of school for students, and June 12, a teacher work day.

This decision feels like a bullet dodged, given that budget shortfalls are forcing some Oregon school districts to cut, or consider cutting, one to three weeks of class.

Cutting days, a $339,000 in savings, is only one part of a package of steps intended to balance the 2008-09 school budget shortfall of $1.3 million. The district will also use $750,000 in reserve funds, and is making another $135,000 in non-staff budget cuts following $430,000 in non-staff cuts done in December.

Cutting $1.3 million amounts to 3.3 percent of the current general fund of $39. 1 million.

The budget plan saves some reserves for next school year, when the state predicts another major funding shortfall. The decision preserves all school programs for the remainder of the year, and prevents staff layoffs in 2008-09.

The decision also means that current staff members will keep their jobs until year-end. Without cutting school and work days, the district would have had to lay off up to 45 teachers to balance the budget or emptied reserve funds.

Since November the state has cut the 2008-09 funding for the district by $1.7 million because of a decline in tax revenue.

The school budget has not faced such hardship since 2004, when elementary music and PE were cut, among other things. And crunch time is once again upon the district: The superintendent will deliver a budget proposal to the budget committee in late April, and the school board must approve the 2009-10 budget by June 30.

Between now and then, tough choices face the school board in the months to come as it looks ahead to the 2009-10 budget.

The community is welcome to attend budget committee hearings, and there is opportunity for input. In the past, some citizens have done their homework and given input to the budget committee and school board that was impassioned and reasoned, or both.

With so much at stake — the quality of education in Hood River County School District — these kinds of contributions from the public are all the more vital.