Tri-Valley Teachers Have a "Grade-In"

Teachers from the Tri-Valley gathered at the mall in Pleasanton Tuesday, not to shop, but to do their homework.

They called it the “Grade-In,” a reference to a “sit-in” demonstration in which area teachers congregated in the center of  to grade papers and other schoolwork. They were there in protest over the continued slashing of California’s public education budget and teachers' salaries.

Teachers from the Tri-Valley joined colleagues across California in the to convince the Legislature to approve tax extensions and to prevent more cuts in education.

Members of the California Teachers Association and the event organizer, the San Ramon Valley Education Association, said that the protest aimed to show the public how much work teachers do outside of their paid school hours.

The association's president Darren Day said almost 100 teachers participated.

Although some say that California teachers seem more concerned with getting a good paycheck than doing the best with what they’ve got in tough economic times, the teachers in attendance said that is not true.

“There are so many misunderstandings about how much time we really put in,” said teacher Karin Alexander. “We have teachers who are more passionate than ever, but we’re limited by our large class sizes and dwindling school materials — all with less time to teach.”

The teachers argued that they have taken pay cuts without a raise in more than three years, seen their classroom budgets disappear along with fellow teachers, and that they still spend many hours working before and after school to do a job that they love.

The protesters agreed that the teachers are not the real victims of education cuts, students are.

“A lot of us are worried about (our jobs), but we’re even more concerned about educating our future workforce,” said second-grade teacher Ann Katzburger of San Ramon’s and vice president of the association. “I’m glad my children are older now because … it’s horrible. How are these kids supposed to be prepared to compete with the world?”

Many of the teachers referred to disparate figures to highlight what they called “a state of emergency” for California’s public schools.

How is it, they asked, that California has the eighth-largest economy in the world and yet spends less money on education than 42 other states?

Katzburger said that the student-to-teacher ratio jumped from 20-to-1 to 26-to-1 in the last two years of her career at Hidden Hills.

And worst of all, she said, local districts could lose up to an additional $1,000 per student, on top of the $18 billion dollars, or $1,600 per student that's already been lost in the past three years if the state Legislature implements an “all-cuts” budget to deal with California’s $26-plus billion dollar shortfall.

The message teachers hope everyone is getting from this?

Stop the cuts before it’s too late.

“Our whole intention is to bring about awareness that we need more from the government, not less,” said second-grade teacher Rosanne Fissore of in San Ramon. “We’re down to bare bones here.”

“”Our kids are getting ripped off,” agreed Aristina Wooten, a first-grade teacher at in Livermore. “Aren’t we supposed to be raising our future here?”

The teachers will be holding a rally at 5 p.m. Wednesday as part of the “Week of Action” on the northeast corner of Bollinger Canyon Road and Camino Ramon in front of Bishop Ranch 2.

And on Friday, teachers will take BART together after school and meet with other demonstrators to take their message to the U.N. Plaza in San Francisco.