Chris Ogawa, a school nurse in Pajaro Valley Unified School District, is being laid off. Though she's lucky enough to retire with a Golden Handshake, she fears that the district's remaining nurses will be unable to protect children from illness, injury, and in some cases, death.

 "They think that nurses are expendable, but who else can work with children being fed through gastro-intestinal tubes, children who suffer life-threatening seizures, and others on complex medical cocktails?" she asks. "We do a lot more than hearing and scoliosis testing. We make sure children are safe at school, and as healthy and ready to learn as possible."

Pajaro's student-nurse ratio of 2400:1 is already more than three times the recommendation of the National Association of School Nurses. The layoffs will leave the equivalent of 5.4 full-time nurses to serve 19,000 students, a ratio of  3518:1.

 "To be told that what we do every day is 'non-essential,'" she adds, "and can be done by someone else who isn't trained is beyond belief."

Employees are being told the district needs to cut $8 million, and like most California districts, it proposes eliminating or drastically reducing music, art, physical education, summer school, nurses, library services and other services tagged  "non-essential." Pajaro is eliminating elementary school library technicians that will result in all elementary schools losing their libraries, as well as three nursing positions, four out of six music positions and several counseling positions.

The agony of feeling devalued
Music teacher Meri Pezzoni is also being laid off. She directs choral activities at Aptos Junior High School and Aptos High and teaches an introductory instrumental class. A Santa Cruz native, Pezzoni joined Pajaro's teaching staff 22 years ago. She wanted to teach as a way to pay back her community for the excellent musical education she had received from her local schools.

 "Music is important and complicated," she says. "There's one part of your brain that only lights up when doing music. Music has proven to help increase verbal and mathematical skills. And," she adds, "singing is especially helpful to English Language Learners who pick up English through repetition of lyrics without it being boring. Kids become better students because their study habits get better."

Pezzoni's programs have been recognized nationally and her choirs have sung at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She feels "devalued when getting pink-slipped and referred to as 'non-essential.'"

She is particularly disappointed that she won't be around for the realization of a Performing Arts Center at Aptos High, a project to which she devoted the last 10 years. She fears that there is "no big picture for the performing arts," and asks, "Where will the next generation of performing artists come from?"

Other states come calling
While Pajaro's classroom teachers who were pink-slipped in March have been spared layoffs, not all California classroom teachers have been so lucky. Though California faces a shortage of more than 100,000 K-12  teachers in the next decade, an estimated 20,000 California teachers have been notified that they will have no position next year.

Some of the best trained, most experienced and talented educators in the country, California teachers are being recruited by Hawaii, Texas, Virginia, Nevada, Kansas and other states. Out-of-state recruiters are taking out ads on freeway billboards and in newspapers, and sending delegations to some of California's hardest-hit districts.

"California's poor budget choices are resulting in devastating losses to California taxpayers," said CFT Secretary- Treasurer Dennis Smith, "such as the millions of dollars invested in training our teachers."

CFT and other education organizations point to the need to raise revenue to "keep our teachers in our classrooms." California needs more than 33,000 new math and science teachers alone in the next 10 years.

The CFT continues to call for closing the yacht owners' tax break loophole, reinstating the top income tax bracket and dozens of other revenue increases to prevent laying off and losing thousands of highly skilled, motivated and much-needed California teachers.

- By Mindy Pines, CFT Reporter

Laid off? The AFL-CIO has prepared a practical survival guide to unemployment. It offers tips about financial assistance programs, dealing with creditors, and getting back on your feet again financially. Call the CFT Bay Area office, 510-523-5238, to have a copy mailed to you.

 At press time: In the May Revision of the state budget the governor retreated from suspending Proposition 98, the minimum funding guarantee to K-12 and community colleges. This amounts to a $4.3 billion cut when COLA and other factors are considered, but fully funds the budget year guarantee according to updated estimates. At the same time the governor called for even more drastic cuts to health and human services. He proposed raising revenue by leasing a portion of the lottery for an estimated $5.1 billion per year, an action voters must approve. CFT President Marty Hittelman said "this postpones some of the hurt, but shifts the burden to adequately fund education and other vital services into the near future." The governor proposes increasing year-to-year funding for K-14 by 0.5 percent, but K-12 districts still face cuts to categorical programs. Teachers and school staff are still confronted with uncertain futures in many districts. - Ed.