pink is the new green?

I'm not sure how wearing pink translates to saving jobs for teachers, but it hopefully does show support for our poor pinkslipped colleagues.

As many of you know, today--Friday the 13th, how appropriate--was the deadline for giving teachers the Pink Slip in California. At my site alone, 25 teachers were given these layoff notices (and now have to wait until May to find out if it's final, or not... how anxiety-ridden is that!)

So the California Teacher's Association (CTA) came up with the "genius" idea of having teachers, students, and supporters wear pink today, to show our protest in the budget cuts being made towards education in California. (Approx. 40% of the state budget goes towards education; approx. 60% of the GENERAL statewide cuts are coming from education-- huh?) I doubt Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to be so scared by the amount of pink he sees today that he's going to just throw money back at education, but I guess we can hope? I think it's futile, but I did wear pink today in honor of my colleagues. It's tough times.

AND, the word got out and a lot of students wore pink today, and that was pretty cool to see!

some of my first period students

Artis wearing it well


lots of kids carried this support for a pinkslipped English teacher

and a fellow art teacher went ALL out... ohhhh, yeaahhhh :)

This group of kids (above), in my third period class ended up looking like the poster for an after-school special or something like that-- soooo stereotypical, picture-perfect high school. When I told them this (while I was giving them photo shoot "look like high schoolers" instruction), they laughed and said "but we're missing the token black kid!" And it's true, they're in a mostly asian demographic, and while this picture itself is pretty PC, we were missing an african-american. I told them no worries, that's what Photoshop is for.

There! (as promised). They're good sports :)




But the best news is... I GET TO KEEP MY JOB! PHEW.

I love my job so so much-- screen printing, five classes, hello?? Love the kids, love the school, love the art/medium, love the location, love almost everything about it (except for grading, but duh who likes that)... it would have broken my heart to have lost it. And there was a scare, I haven't slept well for a couple of months; just found out Tuesday that I was "safe" and I haven't fully realized the relief, yet.

And if wearing pink everyday would help the problem for the other teachers who weren't as fortunate this Friday the 13th, I'd be out shopping this very moment.