As I write this letter, it is Day 68 since the governor called the Legislature back into special session to deal with the budget crisis, with no resolution in sight.

While larger school districts have some economies of scale to help them weather the situation, this crisis has devastated the budgets of smaller districts such as Moorpark Unified. Already running on a shoestring, this could mean insolvency for some districts across the state.

In order to prevent midyear layoffs to teachers and others, the members of the Moorpark Educators Association have voted, along with other employees of the district, to take a furlough day.

While saving jobs is noble in and of itself, this move stops the dismantling of class size reduction, prevents the wholesale rescheduling of students at all grade levels and maintains educational programs that would have been eliminated with the loss of teaching personnel.

To accomplish this, we have rescheduled Jan. 26 from a pupil-free in-service day to a regular instructional day, moving the pupilfree inservice day to June 12. We know that many of you have made plans for that January day, but we are asking for your help in the following areas:

•Please send your kids to school on Jan. 26. We need the revenue their presence generates.

•Please ask your child's teacher(s) what they could use in the classroom: pencils, pens, paper and even Staples gift cards. Every dollar we don't spend on supplies is a dollar saved.

•Write and call our elected representatives from this area—they just happen to be Moorpark residents. Demand that the Legislature stop playing ideological games and revise this year's budget now with a balanced approach.

According to the office of the governor, the state loses $1.7 million per hour and over $40 million per day without a revised budget. Education Week, in their Quality Counts 2009 Report, has ranked California 47th in the nation in per pupil spending, down from last year's ranking of 46th. It's not hard to imagine us at 50th after this mess.

The students and, yes, the teachers of Moorpark deserve better from their elected officials.

Richard Gillis Moorpark Gillis is the president of the Moorpark Educators Association