With the school year coming to close everyone knows the seniors will not be coming back. What some students may not know is that a few of their favorite teachers will also be leaving the school. In these hard economic times, many teachers at Northgate are receiving pink slips, choosing to teach elsewhere, or even retiring from the job altogether.

Last year a number of teachers lost their jobs due to pink slips. This year with California’s budget crisis, 21,905 pink slips have been issued by school districts all across the state. All though not all of these teachers will lose their jobs, there is a good chance that most of them will. Last year 60% of the 26,000 teachers who received pink slips ended up getting laid off.

One of the teachers who received a pink slip was chemistry teacher and swim coach Kevin Taylor. Taylor, who has only been at Northgate for a couple of years, is a well liked teacher among his students. One of his students even made a facebook group dedicated to asking people to help save Taylor’s job.

“I am very happy to have students who care about my well being. I hope they can show the same care for the whole system and work to make their voices heard in a productive manner,” Taylor said.

With the budget cuts, schools are losing more than just their teachers. All 5th grade music in the Mount Diablo Unified School District will be cut as well causing students to lose a crucial year in music.

“It’s really bad that they would cut music class in 5th grade. It causes all the students to be a year behind which is going to affect them in the long run,” said sophmore Fabien Vaucheret, a member of orchestra at Northgate.

Northgate’s own music teacher Mr. Brown also received a pink slip by the district, which had many students worried. Thankfully during the Northgate Jazz Band’s performance at Yoshi’s, Brown proudly announced that he was not going to be fired.

With this country at its current economic state, it is only safe to assume that the California budget crisis is going to continue getting worse. However firing well liked teachers and cutting good classes is not going to help with our education. It will only turn good schools into mediocre schools and deprive students of knowledge they will need in the future.