You’ve seen the troubling headlines. Hundreds of millions of dollars could be stripped from our public school operations to help plug the gaping hole in the state’s budget over the next several years. More than $264 million per year, not including labor savings from furloughs or reductions in force, would be cut from the Department of Education’s base budget under a proposal we had to put forward to meet budget planning directives.

This comes in the middle of a health pandemic, with yet-unknown learning loss consequences and escalating curriculum, connectivity, health, trauma and safety expenses.

It keeps me up at night and pains me deeply. Our school principals are going through the difficult process of figuring out how to absorb $124 million at the school level, including $24 million specifically in special education. Our centralized state office, which already has the lowest spending nationally for general administration, has identified more than 100 position eliminations, which will directly impact services to schools.

Implementing these cuts presents our students and employees with much difficulty and uncertainty. Our kids do not deserve this. Students should not be forced to advocate for their basic civil right to quality public education. At a time when our children’s education is highly disrupted, and when fears, insecurities and unknowns weigh heavily on their families, what is Hawaii choosing to do for its public school students?

I am proposing a powerful lever of change.

On behalf of our public school system I will be seeking passage of a civil rights bill in the upcoming session that provides funding through what’s known as a maintenance of effort guarantee. This approach — which exists nationally in various fair-funding policies at the federal, state and local levels — is designed to provide consistency for students by ensuring education funding remains constant from year to year. It would make it unlawful to cut the department’s base budget below the previous year’s level.

Hawaii has an opportunity to show the nation that the civil rights of its public school students are nonnegotiable, that there are no expendable generations of students. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, which purposefully followed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, placed a stake in the ground, stating that students — no matter their socioeconomic status — have a right to free, quality public education. The eight reauthorizations of the ESEA that followed further clarified those rights, pushing back on state-driven political battles around race, segregation and equity of access.

We find ourselves in another battle of sorts — the battle for how public funds in Hawaii will be prioritized to protect this constitutional right.

When the Hawaii Legislature reconvenes next month, we will fiercely advocate to prevent disinvesting in public education. But we cannot do this alone. We need the hope and vision that comes from our community standing unified together. No more unfunded mandates. No more over-prescriptive policies that keep us in the age of factory jobs. No more funding cuts to public education.

What will Hawaii’s message to our children be when the 2021 legislative session adjourns? The answer will be reflected in the budget for our public school system.

Christina M. Kishimoto, Ed.D., is superintendent of Hawaii’s Department of Education.