Keeping our promises
Message from Superintendent John E. Deasy, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
Measure S is simply the assurance that we, as a community, will keep our promises to the young people in our cities. We told them that we would take care of them, keep them safe, educate, enrich and excite them and, most important, model for them the true meaning of community.
Our state has failed to keep its promise, our federal government is failing to keep its promises, and we, as a community, must not let our young people down. We have a covenant with youth-to model, to educate and to help prepare them for assuming leadership and active citizenship in our democracy. The failure of Measure S will break this covenant.
As you know, the state has several years of grave funding shortfalls ahead and we have lost $13 million in programs next year alone.
While the current proposed budget by our “Education Governor” calls for less new cuts, it does not restore any of the cuts we have made for next year. Funding for 207 employees is gone, among them 91 teachers, five nurses, 11 custodians, 10 physical education providers, 12 administrators, seven facilities and grounds positions, 12 district office clerical workers, 14 school site classified positions, nine elementary library coordinators and three library assistants. Measure S will provide funding to restore a critical portion of these cuts. I am not sure what I will say to thousands of students on June 4 if it fails, and I would not know how to explain the results of failing to support them. I also do not know what I will say to the hundreds of dedicated and remarkably talented adults who will be unemployed if Measure S fails. My fervent hope is that we will not have to face this situation.
I believe we have choices. I trust in our community. I trust we will choose to keep our promises.