A few years ago, SMSD faced over $25 million in budget cuts. At the same time, the number of SMSD students living in poverty almost tripled between 2000 and 2010. Over 1/3 of SMSD students now qualify for free and reduced lunches, the district has over 300 homeless students, and we have almost 5 times the number of ELL students as we had in 2000. Anyone who claims these numbers don’t require extra resources doesn’t deserve to be in office and doesn’t deserve to call himself or herself pro-education.