What's Your Point?

It's that time of year again. The one when teachers are more apt to look at their feet than in the eyes of their peers, for fear that someone just got some bad news. Now, I've always rather liked my feet, but, even with my exceptional bone structure, I'd prefer gazing upon my friends. Except now.

Like I said, it's hard to look at my peers these days, considering each school just found out how much funding it'll receive next year. No surprise to learn that Lincoln schools took a hit. Again. At East High, where I teach, we've lost the equivalent of 20 staff members in the past four years. Granted, our enrollment has decreased each of those four years, but not enough to warrant 20 employees.

This year, East is being funded at 89 percent of the rate it was funded last year, in part because our estimated student population will go down by somewhere between 30 and 60 kids. In fact, it's been almost a decade since East has been funded at 100 percent. And East isn't alone. Virtually every school in the district will receive less funding next year. And less funding--at the school level--means fewer adults in the building.

Even the Lincoln Public Schools District Office is feeling the pinch. Just yesterday, the superintendent sent out an email to all LPS staff, saying that just about every district department also has taken a hit this year. It must have been a difficult email to send.

Now, I know there are people who think teachers don't work hard enough or aren't qualified to do their jobs. For these people, perhaps, the budget cuts seem justified. Forgive me if I assume that these folks haven't been to a school since chalkboards were made of slate. But I'm just speculating.

Here's what I do know. As a teacher, I have never worked harder than I have worked this year. I have never felt more pressure, more expectations, or more scrutiny than I feel this year. And, still, I have never figured out a way to cruise through my days doing little or working less. Never.

Maybe I'm just a slow learner. . . .

. . . or maybe teaching really is an exhausting, intense job, even when our students are terrific. Seems to me that people would want to pay for the quality education they expect. And I'm not talking teacher salaries. I'm talking about funding education at 100 percent--for every student, there is a fully-funded system in place that includes enough teachers, enough supplies, enough time to get the job done.

Some things aren't worth their price tags. And then there are things--including education--that should never, ever be shortchanged.

Enough is enough. And not enough is getting harder and harder to take.