Teacher organizing protest over state’s spending cap for schools
By Michael Raimondi
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PHOENIX (KPHO) — A Phoenix teacher is organizing a walk-in protest Monday morning to get more support for public education. Chico Robinson says some parents, teachers, and students will wear all black Monday morning. Before classes at Kenilworth Elementary begin, the group will stand on the sidewalk holding signs and chanting support for public school funding.
“This is not something that we need to play games with,” Robinson said. “This isn’t the moment we need to play politics. This is the moment we need to respect our students and public education. Something should be equal for every single one of our students.”
If state lawmakers don’t override the spending cap on March 1, schools could lose more than $1 billion in funding. Each public school district would lose hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and that could force schools to cut teachers and programming for students.
“I envision just being able to come to school, teach and come home to my family and work on planning, not having to keep public schools open,” Robinson said.
Gov. Ducey’s former chief of staff said on ‘Politics Unplugged’ that funding isn’t the biggest threat to schools. Daniel Scarpinato said a few weeks ago that teacher unions demanding to go back to virtual learning was the biggest threat. Lawmakers would need to vote with a 2/3 majority to override the spending cap before March 1, 2022.
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