Thank You, Teachers:

Even in the worst of circumstances, teachers continue to care for and educate our children

Hey, today is National Teacher Appreciation Day! Thank you, teachers, for all you do. I’m sure all the Oklahoma Legislators have sent you personal cards and gifts to apologize for their bad behavior. Because of their unwillingness to support reasonable measures to get Oklahoma out of its budget crisis, you will be getting the gift of:

• larger class sizes
• lost jobs
• fewer AP and IB offerings
• four-day work weeks in some districts
• less support personnel
• fewer offerings in athletics, music, arts

I haven’t heard much talk about “college and career readiness” coming out of the Oklahoma State Capitol in recent months. If I were a college admissions recruiter, I would probably be moving kids who graduate from Oklahoma schools at the bottom of the stack.

I know you teachers will keep working, doing the best you can with less. You’ll keep plugging away to help kids, knowing that many of them are coming from family situations where Dad can’t get help for a mental illness or Mom can’t afford to go to a doctor. One thing affects another, and the budget crisis has created a mass of fragile families teetering on the edge of a cliff.

But public school teachers will continue to take in those children, to feed them, to listen to them, to educate them, even in the worst of circumstances, because that’s what teachers do.

Happy National Teacher Appreciation Day!