Teachers rally in SR

Hundreds of local teachers stood under the blazing sun and bunches of pink and white balloons in Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square on Wednesday afternoon to demand more money for education in California.

“We have to put kids first, they are most important, they are our future,” said April Nichols, a kindergarten teacher at Jack London School in Santa Rosa.

The rally marked Day of the Teacher but also coincided with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s release of his revised state budget proposal.

Despite a looming $17 billion deficit, Schwarzenegger’s latest numbers are markedly brighter for education than his January proposal. His plan now calls for Prop. 98 education funds to be spent in full.

But the budget cuts deeper into the state’s health and social service programs.

Teachers Wednesday expressed frustration that a reprieve for education might come at the expense of mental health programs and welfare spending.

“To me, that is just as bad as going into education,” said Jon Western, math department chairman at Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa. “I don’t want to see it hit people at the bottom.”

Healdsburg Junior High School math teacher Pat Sabo called for an overhaul of how the budget is hammered out in Sacramento every year. Teachers are not rising up to “whine” about money, she said, they are demanding wholesale change.

“This is different, this is a new beginning, because this is the time when we say Band-Aids will not work. We need to change the very core of how we fund education,” she told the crowd. “No longer will we allow you to put public education and other public service when it comes to funding.”