The pandemic hit all of us hard and redefined the waywe liv e. It had a profound and lasting impact on our communities, our economies, our governments and our mental health. It’s simply a fact that Colorado schools, their staff and our kids are facing unprecedented upheaval and change. Something that has not changed, however, is the fact that our K-12 education system is as underfunded now as it’s been for decades.

The combination of TABOR, the fluctuation of property taxes and a lack of dedicated investment in our public schools means we don’t have the resources we need to help meet the challenges our kids are facing. Colorado schools face a more than $10 billion budgetary shortfall that has accumulated over more than 13 years.

Though this year Colorado schools are set to receive one-time pandemic relief funding, this can’t make up for years of shortchanging our kids. Buying down the budget stabilization factor is a great beginning, but it’s just that. The reality is most of our kids have spent their entire education in underfunded, understaffed schools. Imagine someone borrowed $100 from you every month for a year, then paid you back $100 for one month and called it even. You wouldn’t accept that deal and neither should our kids.

Next year, school districts like ours will be right back in the same position, facing a fiscal cliff and forced to make cuts to teachers and staff and to the critical services and programs kids need. The teacher-shortage crisis facing our schools is real. As vacancy rates rise across the state, a recent survey found at least 60% of educators were considering leaving their profession. Our kids deserve age-appropriate class sizes, where they have access to the best and brightest teachers available. This will never happen without paying our teachers and school staff what they have earned and what they deserve.

Funding shortages also mean we must cut back on services for our students. No family in Colorado was left completely untouched in the wake of this epidemic, but perhaps hit the hardest of all were our children. The stress of the pandemic compounded with financial stressors, increased violence in our communities and more means access to mental health services for students has never been more important. More than 1-in-5 school-aged children have experienced worsened mental or emotional health since the pandemic began, but our counselor-to-student ratio hasn’t kept pace.

We also don’t have the funding to ensure students are prepared for the workplace and the jobs of the future. Adequately funding our schools means providing more access to education in science, technology, engineering, arts and math, as well as access to the career and technical education that will prepare students for the workforce.

The reality is, at our current funding levels, our students simply aren’t getting what they need to thrive whether that’s mental health support, career-oriented curriculum, or adequate face-to-face time with their teachers. Many of our districts classrooms are overcrowded, and in most of our districts we are struggling to attract and retain teachers.

Now, as we listen to lawmakers debate funding for public education, we have never been more concerned. One-time funding cannot make up for decades of disinvestment, yet even as dire as the K12 funding situation is, lawmakers are considering raiding the K12 budget to back-fill other programs.

Our kids deserve better. All Colorado kids deserve a strong start in life, and we believe access to a quality education is a right and is critical to our future prosperity and success as a society. We are not just signing this piece as superintendents, but also as parents. We all need to start paying attention and demand our schools are adequately funded.

It’s time to remind our lawmakers that kids matter too!

Dr. Wendy Birhanzel is superintendent of Harrison Public School District-2 and Wendy Rubin is superintendent of Englewood Schools.