Gas prices are too high...!

By Vanessa Overholser - Staff Writer

May 02, 2008 11:44 am

— The gas prices are just ridiculous. Our school system spent over $110,000 over budget on fuel to bus our children to and from school plus field trips. The prices seem to creep up higher and higher by the minute.
Our school system is taking a serious look at the situation. There are different ways to deal with the problem. The school may have to charge money for field trips, extracurricular trips such as sports, speech tournaments and choir competition trips. School officials do not want it to come down to this but something must be done in order for school activities to continue.
Some schools have cut back to operating only three to four days a week. Although this may sound great to students, there is a catch to having a cut back for a day or two per week. Students may end up having to make the days up at the end of the school, which they do for snow days anyway. This will cause graduation dates being later and it will spill over into families who have planned vacations.
Not only are the gas prices affecting the school system but also they are affecting every aspect of life. A simple drive to the store isn’t so simple anymore. Now people are combining trips whenever they go somewhere. When some go out to the grocery they are also using that same trip to take their child to baseball practice.
Prices at the grocery store are going up also. Some shoppers are spending anywhere from 1 to 4 percent more on their grocery bill. Due to hefty fuel costs many truck drivers have to either quit driving or work for bigger corporations in order to work.
Many automobile factories that make trucks and sport utility vehicles are laying off their employees because sales are at an all time low. Many automobile consumers are going to the smaller vehicles in order to save money on gas.
What I wonder is what will it take for the big oil companies and fuel companies to get the message on the negative impact the high fuel prices have on the working class people as well as business owners. Perhaps when their sales go down because average people cannot afford to purchase fuel, big corporations may change their minds on hiking the prices up.