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The State Board of Education helped a budget workshop at the Capitol today. The Board is looking for ways to get through tough economic times. Among the ideas being pushed by school superintendents is more flexibility. They want to be able to use construction dollars for the classroom or text book dollars to pay teachers. Marion County Superintendent Jim Yancie says if he�s lucky, he�s facing a 27 million dollar cut and it will mean many students doing without.

�We would have to eliminate all extracurricular activities. In our case we would have to eliminate art and music from our elementary school curriculum and probably middle school curriculum,� Yancie said. �We�d do everything we could to do reading, math, science, and social studies and the writing requirements. And continue to do the best job we can.�

In Gulf County, residents are being asked to approve higher property taxes to fund schools. The mail in vote takes place tomorrow.