As the new school year begins for students, some school officials are ready to fight for more funding.

The Folsom Cordova Unified School District joined with eight other school districts, the California Parent Teacher Association, the California School Boards Association, the association of California School Administrators Association and more than 60 individual families in filing a lawsuit against the State of California, according to school officials.

“Our students deserve a better future,” said Deborah Bettencourt, superintendent of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. “Education funding in California has dipped to 49th out of 50 states. As the fifth largest economy in the world, California should make education a higher priority.

“The lack of sufficient funding has created an untenable burden on our schools and it will impact the future of our students, our state, and our nation. We will lose our competitive edge in technology, agriculture, tourism, research, and aerospace manufacturing if there is not a conscious decision to make education a priority in this state,” Bettencourt said.

According to Bettencourt, the lawsuit (Robles-Wong v. California) argues that, “the unsound, unstable and insufficient school finance system is neither aligned with required educational programs nor with student needs. The amount of funding provided to education is not enough to deliver the required programs to all students so that they meet the State’s educational goals. The funding system causes unequal learning opportunities.”

According to local school officials, it’s time to fight.

“We are excited to become a part of this lawsuit,” said Stephen Nichols, public information officer. “The state has great expectations, but does not provide enough funding. We are challenging the state and are hoping the courts will join in to provide an adequate amount of funding.”

The district will not see any legal costs for joining the lawsuit, said Nichols. The legal services for the individual districts and the families will be provided on a pro bono basis by various legal firms.

“There will be no legal cost acquired by the district, period,” Nichols said. “School financing is broken, so they are doing it for free.”

The FCUSD is being represented by Olson, Hagel & Fishburn, LLC. The families are being represented by Bingham McCutcheon, LLP.

“It’s a bold move to be a part of something like this landmark,” Nichols said. “When successful, this will change the way education is funded in the state of California.”

Sutter Middle School eighth grade student Jordan Thompson, 13, is a co-plaintiff with her parents.

“It feels different to be a part of the lawsuit,” Thompson said. “It’s something that’s never been done before, so to be a student, it feels a little weird and exciting.”

She said one of her biggest fears is losing electives because of inadequate funding.

“If the state keeps taking money away from the schools, then we won’t have any more electives and sports,” Thompson said. “Over the summer it was told to us that we may not have any electives like yearbook, but it turns out we do have electives. But, over the summer a lot of students were really worried about it.”

California State Parent Teacher Association President Jo Loss was a plaintiff who initiated the lawsuit.

“This wasn’t an action taken lightly. We are really convinced that the current school finance system denies the education we promised students,” Loss said. “And that promise is defined in our constitution. Education is a fundamental right for every child.”

She said the goal of the lawsuit is to obtain a stable, ongoing and reliable financial system for students.

“The students can’t wait for the adults to figure it out, they only have one shot,” Loss said. “I think it’s terrific that students know what’s going on, but it’s sad. This is an adult issue and we need to deal with it, children shouldn’t be feeling the brunt of these budget cuts.”

She said in the past two years, there were $17 billion in cuts in public education. This, she said, represented 60 percent of cuts in California.

Nichols said filing the lawsuit was a last resort.

“If you look at all the things our district has had to do in the last 10 years, including losing teachers and closing libraries, when is it going to be time that the people who fund us say enough is enough,” Nichols said. “We are looking forward to a successful outcome to this case because we don’t want the volatile funding structure to continue into the next generation.”