Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/426191
AEA Advocate x Winter 2014/15 11 AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA AROUND AEA By Lisa Irish, this article originally appeared on azednews.com A year after the Arizona Supreme Court decided the Legislature did not fund schools' inflation costs for several years as it is legally required to, educators and parents came together to urge the state to start paying the more than $300 million owed to public schools this school year. "I see the impact every day in our learning community in my children's school. Parents are doing more. Teachers are doing more," said Jen Darland, parent of a third-grader and a fifth- grader who attend a Tucson Unified school. "They are doing more to provide the learning environment our kids need in order to reach their full potential, but they're doing it at a time and in an environment where they do not have the resources to help these children fully reach their potential." Like all Arizona districts, Balsz School District in Phoenix, was forced to cut a million dollars from its budget starting in the 2009-2010 school year due to decreased state funding during the Great Recession, said Superintendent Dr. Jeff Smith. "Without the funding we've been forced to reduce salaries, benefits and essential services each year for the past five years in our district," Smith said. "We had to make, I would say, 'Sophie's Choice' kind of decisions. Do we clean classrooms or do we give teachers benefits? Do we have another aide who's needed in this classroom or not?" Balsz, like other Arizona districts, has tried to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, but inevitably the cuts do touch the classroom, Smith said. "Everything from maintenance for buildings, afterschool programs, and enrichment for kids have all been on the chopping block in one form or another," Smith said. "Either you squeeze it down and make it to where it's not as effective or eliminate it." If the Arizona Legislature had fully funded inflation costs, "Balsz would have received approximately $785,000 in additional funding for this year alone," Smith said. "This money would have gone to purchase textbooks, additional library books, and hire teachers to reduce class sizes for our students in Balsz," Smith said. Students currently in first through fifth grades have never learned in a classroom funded the way voters intended when they passed Proposition 301 in 2000, with basic annual increases to account for the rising costs of goods and services, Dr. Tim Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association. "If you look at this from a statewide perspective, that's half a million students who have never had a fully funded education experience in our state," Smith said. Teacher salaries that haven't risen in years have made it hard to retain highly-effective, experienced teachers and left hundreds of teaching positions unfilled across the state this year, said Dr. Frank Davidson, superintendent of Casa Grande Elementary School District. "The most significant issue for our district – without a doubt – is the impact the loss of inflation funding has had on our ability to be able to attract and retain teachers," Davidson said. "If I sent a recruiter back to Pennsylvania or Illinois and they're sitting beside recruiters from Texas, or North Carolina, or Florida, or California and our salaries are substantially less than those other states, what's a new teacher to do but to choose where they're going to make the most money straight out of college," Davidson said. One Tucson Unified middle school still has 15 teaching positions open this school year and two Educators, Parents Urge Arizona Legislature to Provide Court-Ordered Funding Continued on next page Attorney Don Peters speaks about school districts efforts to resolve the lawsuit and get more money into our schools faster.