Schools

Teachers, Parents Rally Against Education Cuts

The California Teachers Association says thousands of preliminary teacher layoff notices have been issued across the state.

Bay City News - Teachers, parents and administrators across the Bay Area today are opposing cuts to education funding with a "day of action" scheduled to coincide with the deadline for school districts to issue pink slips.

Supporters have dubbed the day "Red Tuesday" and are calling on  lawmakers to support the governor's proposed budget, which averts cuts to  K-12 education by raising $12 billion in revenue in addition to making $12.5 billion in cuts.

The revenue is contingent upon a special election in June in which  voters would be asked to extend some current taxes and fees that are set to expire, but Republican lawmakers have so far refused to let the issue go to the ballot.

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California Teachers Association spokesman Mike Myslinski said K-12  public education has lost more than $18 billion in state funding over the  past three years and could lose another $4.6 billion if lawmakers decide to balance the budget entirely with cuts.

He said thousands of preliminary teacher layoff notices have been  issued across the state, and the latest estimate on the number of notices  will be announced in San Bruno this afternoon at an event with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson.

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Final layoff notices have to be issued by May 15, Myslinski said.

"It causes chaos right now both for parents and teachers, who  wonder where they stand in these uncertain times," he said.

The San Bruno event will begin at 4 p.m. at Portola Elementary,  located at 300 Amador Ave. The California Teachers Association's board of directors will be present.

Hundreds of Oakland Unified School District teachers will also rally and picket from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in front of Oakland High School, located at 1023 MacArthur Blvd., Myslinski said.

About 540 Oakland Unified teachers have received pink slips, he  said.

Teachers in other parts of the Bay Area held events before school started today.

In Union City, members of the New Haven Unified School District  rallied at Alvarado Middle School's new $10 million library, which will close if the governor's tax extensions aren't approved, New Haven Teachers Association president Charmaine Kawaguchi said.

Kawaguchi teaches math and computer programming at James Logan  High School.

The district could face about 60 layoffs, closures of the middle and high school libraries, and the end of some athletics, music and art programs, she said.

"We can't say it's a good school program if we don't have a  library for kids to check out books, read and do research," she said. "We can't say it's a good school program if kids can't stretch their minds outside of school with arts programs."

Kawaguchi said public schools have relied on federal stimulus money, creativity and meticulous planning to scrape by for the last two years, but that things are coming to a head after 10 years of growing class sizes and teachers doing more with less.

When she started 23 years ago, Kawaguchi said, class sizes averaged 30 students. Now they have almost 40, and high school teachers work with up to 200 students per day.

"I have much less individual time with students, and there are more opportunities for children to fall through the cracks," she said.

Teachers have been asked to do the same job with 20 percent less funding over the last two years, and they're exhausted by the end of the day, Kawaguchi said.

She added that there are misconceptions in the public about what  teachers do and the effort they put in.

"It's not like industry," she said. "I worked in industry for seven summers; they only expect four hours of productivity per day. We're  expected to be productive all day, and there's a stack of papers we take home every night (to grade)."

Kawaguchi said she also gets frustrated when people who don't have children question why their tax dollars should go to fund public education.

"Every one of these children is California's future," she said. "They're our future work force, your future neighbors. If they're not well educated, they don't help us move California's economy into the future. They're going to be a drain on you if they're not properly educated."

California has 6.2 million students across 1,000 school districts,  teachers' association spokesman Myslinski said.


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