 "Photo: Travis Turner")
"Stop the cuts to my future!" "Save my education, keep the doors open!"
By 5 p.m. on Thurs., March 4, these signs were lining 5th Street in front of the Humboldt County Courthouse in Eureka as protesters yelled, "You say cut back, we say fight back!"
Several hundred teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens took to the streets to promote more funding for education in California. The protest, which was held simultaneously throughout the state, is one in a series of rallies meant to put pressure on legislature to end budget cuts to public education. Students held rallies everywhere from Cal State Northridge in Southern California to San Jose State to San Francisco State for the same purpose.
"The government budget is being discussed this month," said Chris Haynes, a geography professor at HSU and Humboldt County Chapter co-President of the California Faculty Association. "We want the public to remind their legislature that education is too important to cut funding."
Stacie Lyans and Romi Hitchcock-Tinseth, both of whom work in the admissions department at HSU, joined students in climbing up the concrete base of the flag pole to raise their signs high into the air.
"I love to see the interaction," said Ryan Keller, a teacher at Eureka High school. "It makes me glad to see that other people care," said Keller of the cars that honked as they drove by.
A young Noah Meisel sat on his father's shoulders and shouted, "Shut the prisons, save my school!" Meisel's father, Josh, is a sociology professor at HSU and both came to show their support. In the background Pamela Ward, a marine biology major, pounded her drum creating a beat for the chants. People danced, marched and shouted.
Every time a car or truck honked the horn, the cheers swelled through the crowd. Even a police officer honked his horn as he drove by in a police car.
In Hayne's opinion, "We will never get our of our economic woes without an educated populous."
CHECK OUT SAN FRANSISCO STATE UNIVERSITIES COVERAGE OF THE STATEWIDE PROTESTS:
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