Work.

Arizona is the most messed up state. We are facing being at a loss of 1.6 billion dollars this year. Where are they getting most of the money you ask? From education. They are taking back 95 million from us. Our school district alone has to cut out 8.8 million dollars before the end of the school year. What this means for us so far is that for the first 2 absent teachers a day we have to give up our prep hours and fill in for them without extra compensation. I already work 9 hour days with a 25 minute lunch and feel exhausted and now you are going to take away my only hour to prepare for my students. We have a lot of teachers that are out and there aren't a lot of teachers with my prep hour which means I will probably only get my prep every couple of days if I am lucky. Thankfully I will only have to deal with this for a couple of weeks because it doesn't start until after spring break and I will only be there for about 2-3 weeks after spring break but I feel bad for my coworkers. There are a lot of other cuts going to take place too. They are cutting funding to a lot of programs. I teach AVID which helps average students get ready for college for 2 periods a day. Our school gets extra contracts for those classes. Well next year we won't. So will we still have the program? It is one of the best programs on campus and I will be really sad if it goes even if I am not there because it matters to the students. They are also thinking of axing all day kindergarten. Eve is slated to start in 2010 and I want her to go to all day K. I will even pay for it but now not only are you making my job miserable but you are also taking away programs I want for my personal child. There are other programs we won't get as well. I really wish we had Janet Napolitano still as Governor. Jan Brewer is freaking idiot. To top off all the cuts the state government wants to lower taxes. Yeah we are short on money so we are going to lower taxes it makes a lot of sense. I really wish we had a more education friendly state government but that is what happens when your state is ultra conservative and run by a church (oh wait did I say that out loud?) I really wish they would take their heads out of their asses. I can't even start on everything that is wrong with their intended cuts but it would be nice if they had someone who actually knew what was good for education in office to help them see that taking away our already limited resources doesn't make us better at our job or make learning any easier for our students.