By Mark
I've been lucky to teach in a community which over the years has supported bonds and levies to support their schools and infrastructure. In the last ten years or longer, our population has exploded and demanded the building of what seems like countless new schools just to house all the students. However, over the last few elections, the margin of support has gradually eroded with the sliding economy.
We're running a replacement levy this month. Unfortunate timing. Passage of the levy will have zero impact on our patron's taxes–it is a replacement levy, merely continuing the level of funding already being provided so the proportion per $1000 of assessed property value will be the same as last year.
Failure of the levy will mean the instantaneous loss of approximately twenty percent of our district's total budget. I'm new to the budget cut game, but that number is huge and scary.
As I'm sure it would anywhere, a cut of twenty percent would decimate our schools and not only erode the quality of our instruction but would be like dynamite to our foundation. And that twenty percent doesn't even consider what cuts in funding might come down the pike from the state–which were the only cuts we had to endure last year and which were painful enough on their own. Gregoire's not-so-optimistic initial budget on top of a failed levy and I cannot even comprehend what our schools would end up becoming.
The trouble is, I could understand a taxpayer's reasoning for considering a "no" vote. For the many, many of our patrons who have lost their jobs, suffered financial strains, I can understand the urge to think "I'm tightening my belt, so the school district should as well."
If I weren't a teacher and a cog in our machine, I wouldn't know that a "replacement levy" doesn't jack up my taxes.
I wouldn't know what a devastating impact losing just one teacher has–not just on the connections that teacher has made with kids or the fact that we're talking about that teacher's livelihood as well–but also the ripple effect which occurs when student numbers increase and the numbers of adults in the school decreases. That means fewer mentors to help troubled kids, more competition for teacher attention and help, and fewer adults whose mere presence in the crowds is enough to prevent violence and bullying.
I wouldn't know that the difference between 25 and 35 kids in a classroom is not just "ten more bodies," it's a directly proportional decrease in the quality of individualized service a teacher can provide each child and an exponential increase in the discipline problems emerging from students who feel disconnected and disengaged due to lack of attention.
I wouldn't know that without school resource officers and nurses and paraprofessionals we're not just jeopardizing children's education, we're jeopardizing their literal health and safety–and schools will be doomed to fail our legal obligations to our special needs students and falter in our requirement that no child be left behind on a state test.
I wouldn't know that cutting a librarian lobotomizes the building, excising the primary resource students have not just for pleasure reading, but for developing academic research skills, critical thinking and the multiliteracy necessary for success in this high-tech century. I might just assume that the library is where the books are, and not realize that it is also where teaching happens every period of every day across every discipline.
And it isn't our patrons' faults that they might consider their own tax burden and economic struggles before thinking of the effects of those people in that building down the street. That's natural, really. But it will be our fault if we don't communicate all this clearly to them and don't give them the chance to really weigh their choice.
So I'm looking for advice. In these economic times and as schools are the targets of deeper and fiercer criticism nationwide, how do we prove to our taxpayers that what we are doing in our schools is worth their continued sacrifice?
What you illuminated so well is what we teachers illuminate so poorly to our communities, thus making it harder for the community to support what’s needed. Each individual teacher must be an ambassador for our profession wherever they are, and with whomever they are. Schools should make ‘open house’ a true ‘open house’: let parents and the community come in and see what happens daily, raw and uncensored. My experience has always been when adults experience what happens at a school daily, their reverence for what we endure grows exponentially. Funding would never be an issue if more people saw and felt the wondrous challenges we face every day, every year.
Mark, I think you’re doing it. Hopefully your district hired a really good marketing company to help your community’s voters understand that it’s a replacement levy, and not a new tax. Unfortunately, as life gets in the way, many of us citizens don’t take the time that’s needed to fully understand the issues presented in our ballots. That’s the real shame. It might be naïve of me, but I think that if people truly understood the situation, they would willingly vote for things like replacement levies for schools. But, you’re right to be concerned – gravely concerned. And with so much negative criticism about public schools, I’m not sure what the damage will be at the local level. My advice is to talk to a marketer.