By Anka Chiorini:
Dear South Valleyside Central School District Community,
I am writing today to inform you of a decision made at our district’s school board meeting last night that you knew about, but were too lazy to attend. Due to budget cuts, we have decided to replace the entire foreign language department with Google Translate.
This was not an easy decision. The board thought long and hard about the values of our foreign language department. We considered how much we enjoy bragging about how many languages our school offers (four) and then we remembered that Google Translate has the capacity to teach our students a whopping 108 languages. Why would we limit our students to just four languages when they could have the opportunity to learn one of 108 languages ranging from Slovenian to Sudanese to Samoan? Respectfully, suck on that, North Valleyside Central School District! Who offers German now? Haha!
Before you ask, yes, we did consider the jobs that will be lost as a result. All of our language teachers have taught our students so well for many years, but they pale in comparison to Google Translate. While Señora Peterson only has office hours on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, Señora Google Translate is literally always available to our students. Like always. 24/7. Need help with your homework? Boom! Google Translate is right there. Unsure about a certain word’s pronunciation? Bam! Google Translate has got you covered. Taking a test and totally blanking? You guessed it: Google Translate, babyyyy!
Sorry, that was unprofessional. I’m just very excited to stick it to North Valleyside High.
Look, let me be real with you. Our district has been hit hard by COVID. Between the massive budget cuts and our equally massive desire to fund our football team, we simply could not find a way to fund the foreign language program. It’s sad, but we must remember that our students were basically just using Google Translate before, so this really isn’t much of a change for them. They’ll still take their language finals in June and be able to earn credits for their class, the only real difference is that we can now buy new football uniforms.
Also, as of next month, we will be replacing our English department with SparkNotes.
We are South Valleyside!
Sincerely,
The School Board
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