Want the news summarized?
Subscribe to The Morning Report.
I am a 10-year teacher in San Diego Unified School District and have seen budget cuts for the last six years. No police services, landscaping, supplies. Rooms get swept once a week and are dusty, dirty, and filled with spiders and cockroaches. A light bulb in a classroom takes three months to get replaced.
We have taken pay cuts for two years with furlough days, haven’t seen a cost of living increase yet the demands are greater and greater.
Larger class sizes up to 38 in a classroom, over 30 different languages in the district, kids in 8th grade who read at a 3rd grade level. More special education students, more professional development and more discipline problems. Our school in particular has raised test scores for the last five years and now we are being asked to take more cuts because our board has made poor funding decisions. I personally have a UCSD undergraduate degree and a master’s degree with 10 years teaching experience and I make $62,000. I give your children the best each day and feel totally disrespected by our society. I am mad because this is sad.
Paul Kaplan lives in San Diego.
Want to contribute to discussion? Submit a suggestion to Fix San Diego.