Rock Hill school officials are looking in every nook and cranny for money for next year's budget, but it is clear that there won't be enough for everything schools would like to have.

So what goes?

On the chopping block are more physical education and foreign language teachers at elementary schools, where expanded programs were planned in the fall. Superintendent Lynn Moody said last week that those items won't be in her proposed budget.

There also won't be any money to add teachers at ParentSmart, a program for parents with students in Rock Hill; the Central Child Development Center, an early childhood education center; or the Phoenix Academy, a flexible learning environment that has a waiting list hundreds of students long.

And there won't be money to hire a professional development studies coordinator for Sunset Park Elementary School or to pay for any special requests from principals.

But there won't be many cuts, either. Moody has not suggested laying off teachers or eliminating programs. She is looking to come up with extra money by trimming each department's budget by 5 percent, rearranging what money is used to pay for what, raising taxes on businesses and borrowing money from the fund balance -- basically the school district's savings account.

"It's much more difficult to take something away that people already have than it is not to give them something that they're asking for," Moody said. "So, that's where you start."

The school district has about $130 million in expenses for next year, but school leaders expect less than $126 million in revenue. That's partly because a state property tax reform law changed the way schools in South Carolina are funded, replacing homeowner property taxes to operate schools with a new penny sales tax.

Under the new school funding system, officials in fast-growing districts such as Rock Hill say they are not getting enough money to pay for all the new students coming in.

'Laying the groundwork'

The Rock Hill district has been phasing in a foreign language program at all its elementary schools by hiring more foreign language teachers for the past several years.

The foreign language programs are offered in either Spanish, French or German.

Lynn Fulton-Archer, who teaches Spanish at Richmond Drive Elementary School and is the district's world language specialist, said students who take a foreign language score better in other subjects. By starting early, they have a better chance of being fluent by the time they graduate from high school, she said.

"We are exposing them to cultures they wouldn't normally come in contact with," Fulton-Archer said. "We're laying the groundwork for diversity and acceptance."

All students take a once-a-week class in a foreign language, but at elementary schools where the programs have been implemented, they get instruction every day beginning in the third grade.

Ebinport, Lesslie, Mount Holly, Old Pointe and York Road elementary schools likely will not have full-fledged foreign language programs next year. Other elementary schools already have the program.

It would cost approximately $100,000 to pay for three more teachers to offer foreign language at the five schools, said Harriet Jaworowski, associate superintendent for instruction and accountability.

Another area where the district had planned to grow was physical education.

Under a 2005 state law, elementary school students are required to have 150 minutes per week of physical education and activities built into their schedules by the coming school year.

But unless the state shells out the money to pay for more P.E. teachers, which does not appear likely, there's no way Rock Hill schools will be able to do that, Moody said.

"We're always concerned about how we respond to unfunded or underfunded mandates," she said. "This is just a situation where we cannot comply."

Right now, students get about 120 minutes per week of P.E. Adding enough teachers to meet the state P.E. standards could cost upwards of $375,000.

"I can understand the district's in a quandary," said Graham Stafford, a P.E. teacher at York Road Elementary. "The fact that the state's not funding this legislation puts them in a predicament, but ultimately, the children's health is far too important to ignore. So, I think a compromise has to be made somewhere."

Stafford incorporates different sports and workout stations into his 45 to 60 minutes of P.E. each week with students. He tells them how to eat healthy and shows them his own lunch as an example.

School districts were given some state money to hire more teachers for the current school year, and Jaworowski said that money was used to hire teachers. The district would hire more P.E. teachers if the state provided the money, she said.

The state Department of Education has no way to punish school districts for not complying with the P.E. law, said James Strainer, an education associate with the department.

Strainer will gather information about who is meeting the P.E. standards and who isn't and turn the results over to the legislature. It will be up to the legislature to decide how to use the data.

In Stafford's eyes, the P.E. law addressed only part of a bigger problem with people not paying attention to what they are eating or how they are taking care of their bodies.

"I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to understand that there's a health epidemic going on," he said. "Kids today don't get nearly the amount of exercise they should get."

Moody and other district officials are hammering out the details of her proposed budget for next year, so nothing is set in stone yet. She will present a complete budget to the school board at its May 26 meeting.

The board then has to discuss and approve the budget.