Wednesday, April 22, 2015

An Open Letter to ALL Iowa Legislators


Dear Senator

I teach multiple science classes at Boone High School. I live in Ames and my children attend Ames Schools. No school funding increase means my science classes are larger, I have to make materials stretch even further, and I have to spend less time allowing my students to explore. Science is NOT a subject one simply learns. It is a subject one DOES. Less funding means we do less. Doing less loses students. Their interest wanes. If we want our students to become world leaders through a STEM education, it must be funded on every level. Our students cannot compete globally if schools are wrecked financially. The World Class Education we are reaching for and trying to compete for to allow our students to have will never come to fruition if our schools are not funded and supported by our state. 

It seems to me that you spent more time on school start dates than you have on school funding. Is a fair really that important? I understand it brings revenue. Changing the start date of schools really isn’t going to bring in more revenue. The people who choose not to attend will still choose not to attend. Most families prefer to go on a weekend day, as it helps keep their children on a more routine schedule. Is potential revenue from a fair really more important than students having current textbooks and access to materials for their classes? Are you going to put that extra revenue towards schools as you used this as your excuse to change the start dates?

I have a question for you. Why is it necessary to have an $718,000,000 surplus/emergency fund? I agree we need an emergency fund. Natural disasters happen. However, nearly a billion dollars sitting in your pockets while students have to SHARE textbooks is asinine. A mere five percent of this “surplus” would cover what schools need.

So many of my coworkers and the educators of my children take summer jobs to help make ends meet. I, myself, have done it many summers while my children were home. Why do we do that? It’s not because the pay isn’t enough. It’s because the school funding isn’t enough. We buy many of our own supplies as it is. We feed children from our own pockets. If you take away all of our funding, we will have to purchase more supplies in addition to the food many of us keep in our classrooms.

As a teacher in Boone Schools and a citizen of Ames, I implore you to take a serious look at the school funding issue presently in front of you. Currently, because of your partisan, contentious arguments (also known as a pissing contest) with each other, students, schools, and school personnel are bowing under the pressure of a zero percent increase. Did you take a raise this year? Was it your education that helped you to get into the position you currently hold? Or did you just have the “charisma” and “luck” to get elected?

You have two options at this point. You can fund schools, allow our children to continue to grow, give them the opportunities they need in order to become globally competitive, and allow us to encourage their further interest in education. OR, you can continue to ignore the fact that our schools need more funding and push Iowa further down on the list of states with well-funded and well educated students who will make an impact in their communities, their state and the world. The choice is yours.

Respectfully,

Shannon Lumley