‘Give politicians slips’

“Living on the Edge.” “Under Pressure.” “Come Together.” “Don’t Stop Believing.”

The songs playing over the loudspeakers at Ocean View High School’s Pink Friday rally evoked a statewide sentiment, as hundreds of school district staff, students and parents stood in solidarity with those who have received tentative layoff notices.

Teachers, counselors and other staff members who had already received pink slips by Friday afternoon were issued bright pink capes to wear for the rally and march, where hundreds of people walked up to Beach Boulevard from the high school, soliciting a solid wall of honks from passersby.

“This has been the most supportive district I’ve ever been at,” said new Ocean View High School photography teacher Yvette Marthell, who was among those wearing the pink capes.

Ironically, her school just built a new photography studio, but may lack the funds to keep her on as a teacher if the budget situation doesn’t improve.

At the rally and march, her colleagues carried signs urging the state to give pink slips to politicians, not teachers and bus drivers.

“People here are very concerned about education,” said Norma Gibbs, the city’s first female mayor, who attended the event. “It’s just a shame it doesn’t convey to the Legislature.”

District leaders reminded the crowd that the state now sits near the bottom of the list of per-student spending, after a long reign at No. 1.

“My children had a fabulous grade-school education here,” Gibbs said, but described the current state of education succinctly. “It’s a disgrace,” she said.

“Our students deserve better,” Huntington Beach Union High School District Board President Bonnie Castrey said, citing statistics that budget $60,000 for each prison inmate per year, while less than $6,000 is budgeted for each public school student.

“We need to educate, not incarcerate,” Castrey said.

District leaders urged residents to write to their legislators about the cuts, and also to try to prevent future ones.

Just hours before the education advocates converged at Ocean View, the state announced it has already found an estimated $8 billion shortfall in next year’s budget.

“Consequently, the Legislature and governor will need to adopt billions of dollars in additional solutions in the coming months to bring the 2009–10 budget back into balance,” the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office’s report read Friday.

Ocean View School District Supt. Alan Rasmussen heard the news from the state while he was at a meeting of superintendents in Carlsbad on Friday.

“It was like all the air left the room,” he said. He drove up to Huntington Beach afterward with a heavy heart, but still appeared in his black-and-pink T-shirt in time for the march.

“It’s our future, and the future of the generations after us,” said Kalvien Shoda, 18, a senior at Ocean View who came out to the rally with his friends to support his teachers.

Asked if the students get extra credit for marching, Kalvien replied, “No. We get our teachers.”

CANDICE BAKER may be reached at (714) 966-4631 or at [email protected].