EDITORIAL:

Last month we asked Huntington Beach Union High School District leaders to be careful when trimming the budget and to do their best to not cut classes for the Huntington Beach Adult School.

We argued that the vocational skills offered at the school will help retrain workers laid off from dying industries and that will do its part to help our sickly economy recuperate.

We’re pleased to say school board members hit the books again and came up with a new budget plan that largely spares most of the school’s programs. The school’s most popular programs, such as parent education and computer classes, will continue.

It looked bleak for awhile there. District officials were talking about taking most of the school’s annual budget and shoveling it into the district’s reserves. That would have slashed the school’s budget to $2.5 million. Instead, school board members allocated $3.5 million for the Adult School.

All the credit goes to school officials who found a way to get this done. We often are in the position of criticizing people and institutions in this space, so it’s a real treat when we can offer up the salutations.

It was a difficult job for district officials as money has become so tight for most of us, but the important thing is they got it done.