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"Seminary remains the only youth program where the latest churchwide increase in youth budgets was not applied, perpetuating the old system of “haves” and “have nots”. CES — ever focused on its coddled Release Time Zone students and neglectful of the dedicated Outer Stake student — has set the current budget amount at $4.50/student per year. Seminary is taught approximately nine months a year in the US, and that amounts to 50 cents per student per month. You read that right: 50 cents. The budget problem is so widespread that in a survey I did of self-identifying seminary teachers, I determined family budgets help make up the budget shortfall in 85-95% of surveyed Seminary classes. This means your child’s experience in seminary is at least partially dependent on the disposable income of your child’s seminary teacher’s family. It’s true that there are many reasons for a student’s different experiences in seminary, but when you feel critical of your child’s seminary teacher, have you considered that *budget* could be the explanation for an apparent lack of creativity? A student who is in the class of a teacher who can afford Nerf guns and bacon is going to have a dramatically different experience from the teacher who blew their paltry classroom budget on a printer cartridge."