National Teachers’ Day vs Pink Slip Week

May 4th is National Teacher Day.

This was always a cute week for me at Orchard Elementary in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. Moms (and, yes, there was once a Dad) would come in like little secret elves and decorate our doors for us. Kids would make us construction paper love notes with hearts and flowers and “Smartees” and Hershey’s Kisses candies hot-glued on so tight we’d end up eating hot glue as well as chocolate.

That was the year Angie wrote on my door, in her best curly-girl cursive, “To Mrs. Eskelsen, My Bust Teacher.”

I walked proud for a week.

So, you will note the irony in the universe that this is the week that perhaps up to 250,000 teachers and vital support staff will be receiving pink slips telling them that due to the financial crisis, there is no money to pay them next year.

I know. I know. You’re watching the news and hearing that the economy is on the mend and there’s rays of sunshine softly starting to stream down on state tax coffers which were depleted due to drops in property values and laid off folks not paying income tax on non-existent income and frightened shoppers not buying those items that generated sales taxes. You’re thinking what a lot of teachers were thinking: The storm clouds are passing and it’s a better day.

Kind of .

See, the way taxes are collected and distributed to school districts, funding usually lags the economy by a year. So, as the economy picks up going into next year, schools are still in last year’s depths of the crisis. The rain cloud is still stuck over us for another year. Districts are pulling their hair out trying to find out how to balance budgets. And most of a district’s budget is invested in the people who serve our children.

So most districts are balancing budgets by laying off teachers and support staff like bilingual aides and librarians and counselors and even bus drivers – meaning that kids will be walking miles to school, sometimes on dangerous paths with no sidewalks.

But make no mistake. The kids will be coming. No one, that I’ve heard of, is giving our students pink slips. Every blessed one of them will show up in the fall – but with fewer teachers to give them a hug at those decorated doors.

Do the math story problem:

If you had 100 2nd graders in a school and four teachers last year, you had 25 kids in a room. If one of those 2nd grade teachers gets laid off, how many kids will be a classroom next year?

I’ve lived that math. I’ve had 39 5th graders in the same room. Discipline problems went up. My ability to give my boys and girls that special attention I wanted each of them to have went down. There were several days I went home crying that year, because I felt so guilty that I wasn’t able to teach each child as the precious individuals he or she was.

In Cleveland, Ohio, they’re looking to increase class sizes from 20 to 45. Districts all over are looking at closing down music programs and technology programs and sports programs. They’re closing down preschool programs.

250,000 fewer educators. This is a complicated crisis. But one with a very simple solution: Money.

My hero, Senator Harkin, has filed the Keep Our Educators Working Act. $23 million in cold, hard cash means something very, very good for children.

No gimmicks. No contests. No racing here nor there nor anywhere. Just solid help to cash-strapped states that is earmarked to make sure the teachers and support staff our children need are there in the fall.

It’s one-time money, that’s allowed when there is an emergency. It’s one-time money that will get us through to next year when school funding will catch up with the better economy.

Many teachers have already been told they are being laid off. They’re being consoled that it’s bound to be a one-year layoff and they will be called back the year after. I love my teachers, my friends, my heroes. But this isn’t about them. It’s about the children they serve.

You can call back the teacher year after next. But you only get one year to be a first grader. You only get one year to be a high school senior.

If you put a six year old in a class of 40, her experiences and the attention her teacher will be able to give her will be much more limited. If you cut out the art program or the AP Calculus class or the foreign language class that that senior had planned to take in preparation for applying to a university, he doesn’t ever get it back.

I loved my decorated door on National Teacher Day. But this year, we can do more to help those who work for America’s school children do their jobs. Let Congress hear you. Call your senators today and tell them to support Senator Harkin’s bill to save educator jobs.

Make it easy. Just go to EDUCATIONVOTES.NEA.ORG, type in your zip code, and you can send your message from there. And you can always text NEA4KIDS to 77007 for action alerts and to be a part of the campaign.

Do it for a teacher you want to honor. But do it more for the students who need that teacher on the job.