Teachers, students, parents and local civic leaders joined hands early in the morning on May 14 in a unified effort to urge the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) to stop nearly 1,700 teaching and staff positions from getting the ax. Rallies were held at five schools \u2014 La Jolla High School (LJHS), Muirlands Middle School, and La Jolla, Torrey Pines and Bird Rock elementary schools \u2014 to demonstrate a strong united front against proposed teacher cuts that could potentially blow classroom sizes up to nearly 50 students and affect teaching quality in schools across the district. “They\u2019re thinking about pink slipping one out of every five educators in the district,” said Port of San Diego Commissioner Scott Peters at the LJHS rally. “That\u2019s just not a way to educate kids, and that\u2019s not a way to compete in the brainpower economy \u2026 If the country\u2019s going to be competitive in the future, we can\u2019t let a generation of kids go by without providing them a good education.” Peters iterated the detrimental long-term effects that would result if SDUSD moves forward with the proposed teacher and staff cuts. “It would make classroom sizes larger, the amount of attention that a teacher can give is less, teachers get overworked, and, as time goes on, people don\u2019t go into teaching. We just don\u2019t show enough respect for the profession. I think we really have to get our priorities in shape,” he said. “Obviously, the state is upside-down, and the federal government needs to do what it can, but it needs to start right here.” Amid sign-wielding protesters and the sound of encouraging honks from passing drivers at LJHS\u2019s protest, ASB President Erik Vanstrum and a number of his fellow classmates chanted words of praise and support for their beloved teachers. “We love our teachers here at La Jolla High School,” Vanstrum said. “I can\u2019t imagine going to a school with classrooms filled with so many kids. It\u2019s already hard as it is.” LJHS math teacher Patricia Thomas made a plea to SDUSD board members to shift their focus away from teacher cuts and onto the future of the education system. “How can we fulfill our mission to prepare our community\u2019s students for college if only 20 percent of our faculty \u2014 33 percent of the math department alone \u2014 are laid off?” she asked. “Change your focus. You were elected to educate our students. These pink slips are not the way.” U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, too, made an appearance at the LJHS rally, challenging state legislators to stand up for the future of California\u2019s education. “We need to support our teachers. We need to support our students and their education,” he said. “As a state, we\u2019ve gone down from the first in per capita funding to about 50. That is unacceptable. That threatens your future. We\u2019re going to say \u2018no.\u2019” At the SDUSD\u2019s meeting on May 15, board members emphasized the serious budget challenges the district faces \u2014\u00a0with a more than $100 million projected budget shortfall next school year \u2014 due to increasingly fewer funds trickling down from the state. Despite the difficult times, the board members said they are still committed to maintaining “a quality school in every neighborhood” and will continue to fight for students\u2019 education. “The state does not have money,” said board member Shelia Jackson, plainly. “People think that public schools are safe. They are not safe. With the state deficit looming and getting larger, it is not going to be easy for us to maintain the staff that we have.” Betsy Mueller, president of the LJHS Parent Teachers Association, urged anyone who cares about quality public education to show their support at SDUSD\u2019s upcoming public board meetings. “We want to give the board a loud, clear message that the entire La Jolla community cares deeply about our children\u2019s education,” she said. The Board of Education has until May 25 to deliver final teacher and staff layoff notices.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Teachers, students, parents and local civic leaders joined hands early in the morning on May 14 in a unified effort to urge the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) to stop nearly 1,700 teaching and staff positions from getting the ax. Rallies were held at five schools \u2014 La Jolla High School (LJHS), Muirlands Middle […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":259824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Rallying for the future of education","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}