With posters raised, more than 100 English as a Second Language students gathered in protest at Renton Technical College Tuesday morning.
“We need English!” read one sign. “No more cuts!” read another.
“We are not invisible!” read yet another.
The students who crowded the college’s main building for about two hours this morning were far from invisible. Here from all over the world, the students came Tuesday to protest the reduction of RTC’s ESL program.
The demonstration was student-driven, said Rashmi Koushik, an ESL teacher at RTC. A full timer, Koushik will keep her job amid spring’s cuts. She said she was at Tuesday’s protest “as a witness.”
Barbara Gutierrez is not so lucky. Come spring quarter, she will lose her only job as a part-time ESL teacher at RTC. She teaches almost 30 students every night. Many of those students work during the day.
“I’m more concerned about my students,” Gutierrez said.
According to John Chadwick, RTC’s Dean of Basic Studies, RTC will reduce its ESL classes during spring quarter by almost half, from 37 to 19. That will cut the students served from about 925 to 475. Thirteen part-time teachers will be let go.
The spring reduction follows the loss of 21 ESL classes at RTC during the current winter quarter. The cuts are part of the $884,000 RTC is eliminating from its Basic Studies this school year.
Even deeper cuts will likely come in various programs in the college’s next two-year budget cycle.
Accompanied by a few ESL teachers, Tuesday’s protesting students arrived at about 7:30 a.m., before the monthly Board of Trustees meeting.
Board members and RTC President Don Bressler addressed the crowd of students outside the meeting.
“The bottom line is we have to cut the budget by $884,000. … It’s really just a matter of the economy,” Bressler told the crowd.
“I know it hurts you, but you’re still going to see 1,100 students,” he added.
Those 1,100 students are in RTC’s Basic Studies program, which includes ESL, Adult Basic Education and GED classes.
Even with the cuts, RTC will serve about the same number of Basic Studies students as last year, Bressler said.
That’s what protesters don’t understand, he said.
“We’re not cutting the program,” he said. “We’re going to serve as many people as in the past. We’re just not outspending our budget.”
At the beginning of the school year, the Highlands college budgeted for 872 Basic Studies students, but now already has 943 Basic Studies students, Bressler said.
RTC normally enrolls students until the end of the year, but the college simply doesn’t have the money to do that this year, Bressler added.
“Enrolling in September of this year we didn’t know about the economic problems,” he said. “We were enrolling as many as would fit in the door.”
The Basic Studies cuts will save RTC about $600,000.
Bressler and the board members acknowledged the importance of ESL during Tuesday’s gathering. Bressler told the ESL students they are part of a “feeder program” leading to the college’s profitable technical programs.
“Your coming here is very important,” Ira SenGupta told the protesting students. For democracy’s sake, she said. SenGupta, an immigrant from India, is chair of RTC’s Board of Trustees.
“We are on the same side,” she said.
Still, the protesters had a hard time swallowing the cuts.
“Close ESL classes, close my future,” Fernando Dimas told the board.
A mechanic from Mexico City, Dimas said he needs to speak English for his job. He’s been in the United States 10 years and has been taking ESL at RTC for three months.
“I really sad you know,” Dimas said.
“So are we,” Bressler and the board members replied.
The students should go to the state for funding help, SenGupta said.
“We need to go where?” asked student Dorrel Santana.
“Olympia,” Bressler replied.
ESL ONLINE POLL
To vote in the Rentonreporter.com poll on the value of English as a Second Language programs, go Poll. So far, the response is overwhelmingly favorable for support of the ESL programs.
