Along with all other New York City public schools, Stuyvesant will experience a one percent budget cut, which will be put into effect by the Department of Education (DOE) on Friday, January 29. For Stuyvesant, this amounts to 170,000 dollars.

Principal Stanley Teitel received an e-mail about the budget cut from DOE chancellor Joel Klein approximately two weeks ago.

“I can only assume that city revenues are not what they expected, so there’s less money in the city coffers to cover costs,” Teitel said. “The Department [of Education] has to meet how much money was requested from the mayor.”

According to Teitel, the DOE is paying for most of the budget cut, but needs additional funds from the schools to help cover total costs.

Teitel was not surprised by the cuts. “I was certainly anticipating a one or two percent cut, so we had started to put money aside. That’s the reason I stopped per-session [pay],” Teitel said.

“The cut at the moment is less than I expected,” Teitel said. “Part of that has to do with the fact that a lot of parents advocated to the state, and the state did not cut education [funding] at all.”

Some students do not see the budget cut as negative.

“Stuy is over-budgeted as it is, and one percent is really not that much,” sophomore Saad Bokhari said. “We shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.”

“As long as it doesn’t affect me or my classes during senior year, I’m okay with it,” junior Helen Yuan said.

Other students are more concerned about the budget cut.

Sophomore Emily Atlas said that while the government does not have a lot of money, “education should be their top priority.”

“When it comes down to clubs and pubs, a lot of clubs and publications are not allowed to have faculty advisors anymore due to the fact that they cannot be paid to stay after hours,” senior Omar Ahmad said.

However, according to Teitel, because the money was put aside beforehand, the budget cuts will not affect students. “[They] won’t notice it,” he said.

Teitel does not know if there will be additional budget cuts later in the year. “The letter that I received from the chancellor indicated that he hoped this was the last [budget cut], but won’t guarantee it,” he said.