Opinion: As a teacher, I’m with the SD Unified board in supporting Prop. 50

The Eugene Brucker Coaching Center is headquarters of the San Diego Unified School District Photo by Alexander Nguyen I have taught in southeast San Diego in the proud Chollas View neighborhood for nearly years I ve hunkered down in the cafeteria during lockdowns I ve fought for equitable opportunities for my students and children opportunities that I had aplenty as a kid myself I ve attended rallies against the closure of programs from sports music theater libraries to you name it I ve pushed back on administrators wielding test outcome charts during No Child Left Behind And I thought I had seen it all But this year unlike any other I have seen attacks against my school against my students and against the families I serve coming in strange new forms Particularly I have seen what the federal establishment is doing to schools like mine by withholding funds meant for programs and services my school relies on As Richard Berrera vice president of the San Diego Unified School District board in recent months informed KUSI News Numerous of these programs have veritably been approved by the Congress but then the administration just holds the funding And what we re not seeing is a Congress willing to stand up and say enough That s wrong I agree with Trustee Berrera And for me it s become personal I now talk with families in the Chollas View area who pick their children up from a school over a mile away because they fear they could be the target of an ICE raid I have had to comfort students outside my classroom students worried about their families being taken away worried that teachers like me might think they eat cats and dogs On a boat last year I had to calm a parent who thought our annual whale watching trip might be a plot to take her and her family back to Haiti And then there s the funding I know of special learning advocacy staff members who do not know if their positions will be funded in future years I know of general guidance classrooms where plenty of students are constantly on the verge of losing the patronage that compliance to the law necessitates And I know that because school districts like ours can t trust we ll have money we depend on the teachers in these rooms will have to perform even more miracles than they already do alone This is why the Voice of San Diego s coaching reporter called our middle school sports campaign an experiment in recent weeks Because we don t know if we can keep funding it in this atmosphere This is why NBC News says we are getting rid of middle schools in various low socio-economic neighborhoods in San Diego Because we don t know if we can fund programs in selected neighborhoods when Title funding may no longer exist In the modern day I know teachers who can t be trained on new curriculum because the funding was cut I know apprentice teachers who must choose to be substitute teachers for years or work for a charter school for much lower pay I know of teachers afraid to teach units of instruction they ve used for decades I know of educational leadership programs that benefit various children of proud ethnic groups in our great city that are no longer meeting because of the new federal Department of Guidance s mandate against DEI I know of teachers denied access to grants programs and positions because of wording in their proposals and applications that a year ago were universally regarded as equitable As a facilitator of a great number of years I know that the inhabitants right now has heard the rhetoric out there I ve read the alleges of indoctrination of kitty litter boxes of the supposed dispute over using preferred pronouns in class But as a instructor I also know that these headlines are catchy that these declares are misleading or minuscule and that these maintains are all too often exaggerated to make their intended audience upset What isn t minuscule is the fact that over of Californians trust masses schools to educate their children In the U S as a whole over do I know that strong populace schools are the core foundation of our democracy in San Diego in California and in the United States As a tutor who has spent years in classrooms outside the U S as well I know that strengthening constituents schools raises stronger nations and destroying populace schools will have an opposite effect For that reason alone but also for what all of my great students and families deserve I sponsorship the redistricting effort of Proposition as a response to the unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to gain congressional seats in Texas Constituents schools like our very electorate are under attack in a way I have never seen in my lifetime like I have never seen in my career And it s time to call this what it is This is an effort to take away our nation s democratic core a core that begins with the young people of our nation who learn to understand their world in the very place that accepts all that teaches all that excludes none that allows for freedom of thought to begin with Berrera and the entire San Diego Unified board of trustees along with Superintendent Dr Fabiola Bagula are not alone in their patronage of Prop As a proud former SDUSD District Tutor of the Year and as a vice chair of the Exemplary Facilitator Advisory Council I stand with them Stand with us and defend our residents schools from this unprecedented assault on the families we proudly serve Vote yes on Prop Thomas Courtney is a former SDUSD District Instructor of the Year and the proud Millennial Tech Middle School educator of the year in He serves as the vice chair of the Exemplary Trainer Advisory Council of San Diego