Many teaching assistants are uncertain as to whether or not they will be able to return to work this school year.

The North Carolina General Assembly is still trying to hash out a budget for the fiscal year 2015 to 2016. The two proposed budgets from the House and the Senate are conflicting when it comes to funding for teaching assistants, with the House wanting to continue the same amount of funding as last year and the Senate wanting to slash funds in half.

The Senate instead wants to funnel the money from the proposed cuts to hire more teachers in the coming years and reduce class sizes.

With these possible cuts and the looming fear of assistants not having a job this year, the community needs to stand with its teaching assistants.

They are not babysitters but rather an important extension of the regular teacher in the classroom. They work just as hard as other school employees and are just as necessary.

Reducing class sizes is a good thought on the Senate’s end, but legislators will never lower numbers to the point of there not being a need for teaching assistants. Being responsible for any more than 10 young children, especially kindergarten or first grade, in the classroom is too much to ask a teacher and a task virtually impossible to do to the best of one’s abilities. The legislature will not hire enough teachers to take class sizes down to an appropriate number.

These assistants play a vital role in the education of the county’s children, and members from all areas of the community need to offer their support.

They may not think education involves them, but it does in that the workforce is a product of the school system. Almost everyone has been to school and therefore has been shaped in some way by the schools.

Funding for teaching assistants is not just the educators’ problem. It’s the entire community’s problem.