Educators Across the Bay Protest as Pink Slips Come Due

By Bay City News Service

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.

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. The latest estimate on the number of notices
was scheduled to be announced in San Bruno this afternoon at an event with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson.

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,
300 Amador Ave. The California Teachers Association's board of
directors will be present.

About 30 teachers and other certificated staff were expected to receive pink slips in the latest round of cuts in the San Lorenzo Unified School District. Nearly 80 temporary teachers received layoff notices earlier.

Hundreds of Oakland Unified School District teachers planned to

rally and picket from 4 to 4:30 p.m. in front of Oakland High School,
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 arts
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 among 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.