Empty Chairs Show Impact of School Budget Cuts

Dozens of teachers and students gathered outside schools in the Elk Grove Unified School District Thursday morning to encourage parents to contact state legislators about education budget cuts.

Clad in pink in honor of the preliminary layoff notices that hundreds of EGUSD teachers received this month, the educators set out one empty chair for each employee their schools are set to lose this fall if the state doesn't find a way to increase funding.

Teachers handed out flyers to parents urging them to ask legislators to put extensions of vehicle and sales tax increases that could fund schools before the voters in June. Governor Jerry Brown earlier this week announced he had broken off negotiations with Republican legislators over putting the taxes on the ballot.

"The legislators are fussing and fighting and doing politics, but we can't wait," said Eric Murchison, principal of Florence Markofer Elementary, who stood talking with parents next to a large placard listing the names of popular teachers who departed during last year's budget cuts.

"It's disruptive to our lives and our school," Murchison said. "We're a family here."

District Superintendent Steven Ladd and Elk Grove Education Association President Tom Gardner joined the crowd at Markofer. Gardner said last week that about 900 of his members had received pink slips, though some have been rescinded. The district has also proposed increasing class sizes to 30 at the elementary level.

At Elk Grove High School, both of the school's two health education teachers received layoff notices.

"This is my school, these are my kids, and I can't just leave them," one of them, Juanita Pietersen, said as she waved a sign that read 'SOS: Save Our Staff!'

The school district will hold its fourth and final community meeting on the budget situation tonight at 7:00 in the cafeteria.