Supports funding for education

Editor’s note: This letter was sent to the editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and to the members of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

To the editor:

I urge you to urge the Mat-Su Borough Assembly to increase funding of the Mat-Su Borough School District to the maximum allowed. If you are not familiar with the shortfall in the budget, you can find details here: tinyurl.com/7lu2d9x.

I’m pretty sure the general public is not aware that more than 100 teachers were laid off last year and the same thing is about to happen this year. Teachers don’t like to toot their own horns, but I’m letting you know there are many unhappy teachers because of the stress of possible budget cuts. These are folks who literally give their lives to this endeavor. If there are “X” number of kids, you need “X” number of teachers. Should be pretty cut and dry.

The budget stress in the air right now makes for stressed teachers, and that trickles down to our kids. Teachers call them “our kids.” We care about every one of them, we watch them grow, we deal with their sorrows and their joys. We know who can read and write and who can’t. We go home at night and worry when one of them is failing or sad. We call and email their parents and we are frustrated because we don’t have enough one-on-one time with “our kids.”

High school teachers took on one more class this year, some of them two. It’s interesting to read the large number of comments on a recent letter to the editor in the Frontiersman on this subject (tinyurl.com/7826y7j).

Teeland teachers teach six classes a day now rather than four and have no common planning time, which was the whole purpose of the middle school concept. I am a physical education teacher at Teeland and previously worked at Colony Middle, did my training at Palmer Middle and participate in athletics with Wasilla Middle. These middle schools all have awesome, hardworking teachers who don’t need to be further stressed out.

My world is health and physical education. In 1994, we had four P.E. teachers in each middle school, plus a health teacher. Then we had just three teachers, then two. Every child had P.E. every day. Over the years, health teachers became hit and miss. Last year, some P.E. teachers were displaced yet not replaced. This year several are being displaced and retiring and won’t be replaced. I urge you to think about whether P.E., health, art, computers, band and a few other classes are important to the community.

I have always loved working in the Mat-Su because my principals and peers have always been supportive of physical education. Obesity is at an all-time high among teens, diabetes, tobacco, drugs, alcohol — you’ve all heard it. Why in heaven’s name would you allow the P.E. and health program to slip away? Once it’s gone, we’ll never get it back. That’s what I was told about our computer class, and it’s gone. Our school library is closed over half of the day this year because our librarian is teaching classes.

I think we need to put this to the taxpayers and tell it like it is. Bloggers who say teachers just want more have not walked these halls or lived their lives in these classrooms, and these are not “their kids.”

In summary, my No. 1 thought to leave you with is to please don’t let physical education slip away. My second most important plea is, don’t let any teachers go. Don’t move teachers. Find the money. Ask the taxpayers. Seriously. Walk a day in our shoes.

Debra L. Buzdor

Palmer