Coupeville educators are keenly aware of how much Gov. Gary Locke’s proposed budget cuts would affect them personally, but they want the focus of Jan. 14, the Day of Action, to be about students and the community.

Locke’s budget calls for cancelling $229 million in cost-of-living adjustments for teachers and $221 million marked for reducing elementary school-class sizes.

While Oak Harbor and more than 100 other school districts state-wide will be closing their schools Jan. 14 for the Washington Education Association-sponsored rally in Olympia, Coupeville School District will be represented by community members. Coupeville teachers voted almost unanimously to keep the schools open.

“We’re sending a delegation from the district to join the rally so Coupeville’s voice is heard, but we wanted to keep the schools open and classes operating,” John Luvera, fourth grade teacher and co-president of the Coupeville Educators Association, said.

On the 44-seat bus will be six teachers representing the Coupeville Educators Association. Representing other school staff positions will be members of the Coupeville Educational Support Association. In addition a group of community members will be on the bus.

In a gathering Monday, teachers and school staff shared their concerns about the impending budget cuts.

Superintendent Bill Myhr said there is a “perfect storm” brewing, with the combined effects of a state revenue shortfall, high national and state academic standards that the schools are expected to meet, a crisis in staff health care coverage, and a legislative stalemate with an initiative-driven state government.

Myhr called the combination, “kind of scary.”

If funding is cut for Initiative 728, passed to reduce class size, teachers predict students would suffer from the resulting classroom overcrowding.

Para-educator Wendy Morrow said classrooms are already maxed out, with no quiet places for students to study or read. With more student desks in the same space, “They’d be like rats in a cage,” Morrow said.

That analogy prompted science teacher Tom Eller to put the situation in scientific terms. He said in experiments in species overcrowding, first the stress level goes up, then there is fighting, followed by increased illness and decreased productivity.

School counselor Sheila O’Rourke agreed that larger class sizes would result in more tension, stress, fights on the playground and class disruption.

“It magnifies, and comes back into the classroom,” she said. As a result, she predicted teachers would be taking valuable time away from teaching to enforce crowd control.

All school staff are worried about how they can make ends meet, or even continue in their profession with the proposed cuts, but their biggest concern was how the cuts would affect their students.

“The budget cuts mean less for students,” science teacher L.D. Eller said. “This is going to be devastating.”

Myhr presented a long list of state-wide programs that would be eliminated or reduced by the budget cuts, including anti-bullying training, civil liberties education, the Pacific Science Center school program and summer vocational programs.

The budget cuts would force some teachers to choose between doing what they love, and being able to support their families. Myhr said some teachers are choosing to discontinue health coverage for other family members because they can’t afford to pay the monthly premiums.

With the rising disparity between teachers’ incomes and the cost of health insurance, the prospect of teachers leaving the state is also an issue.

Washington state ranks 19th in the nation for teachers’ pay, at an average of $43,474, according to the Washington Education Association.

“The demands of our profession are very great,” Luvera said. “It takes skilled people.” If those skills are not acknowledged, teachers will go where they are valued, he added.

“If the idea is to attract quality teachers, this won’t do it,” L.D. Eller said.

Kay Foss, who has been a teacher in the district for 22 years, said teachers have a contract with students and parents to provide a good education.

“Without support from the state we’re not able to fulfill that contract with every parent and student,” she said. “It’s going to be so much harder (with the cuts); we’ll be doing so much more with less. The state will pay in the long run.”