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Philadelphia Public School Officials Meet With Community Members Over Budget Cuts

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Parents, students and staff participated in a workshop on Saturday morning on how to close the Philadelphia school district's $400+ million budget deficit. School officials hope not only to get input, but to explain how big of a challenge they're facing.

The session at South Philadelphia High School is the second budget workshop. At the first, on Thursday night at Ben Franklin High, participants like Beth Goodell were given a list of more than 30 programs that could be cut to close the deficit and asked to pick just five that they thought should be saved.

"I just wanted to cry, because that left 25 other really important programs that you can't say you support, so that was very painful, and it's the choices that our school leaders are facing," said Goodell.

Schools CFO Mike Masch says that's exactly why officials are asking for public input. "So that we can make decisions that are still going to be excruciatingly difficult but hopefully will be wiser because we asked these questions before we made the budget public."

Reported By Pat Loeb, KYW Newsradio.

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