It is with great sadness that I have learned 148 Lancaster, California school teachers were given their pink slips yesterday. Stop and imagine what this will mean to your children and the education you want for them. This will mean overcrowded classrooms, fewer elective options and in some cases no music program at all. It will also mean less supervision for your child when not in the classroom, which can affect their safety. After school programs, like marching band or sports will suffer or be discontinued, and programs like special education may be cut also. This is to say nothing of the financial and emotional devastation this will cause our teachers, who may have to move away from our city and maybe the state to find work, causing a shortage of teachers in the future. We moved here 24 years ago because it was a good place to raise our kids and was a growing community. Without good teachers that community will stagnate and people will move to a better place with safer schools and smaller classrooms. Lancaster is in trouble and its citizens need to do something about it. If you disagree with what is happening in the Lancaster schools then you need to contact the Lancaster school district, your congressman, your senator, and even the Governor, to let them know that this isn’t right and you expect a change or you won’t re-elect them. Don’t let them balance the California budget on the backs of our children.