If your state’s budget is anything like the Texas state budget, your legislators are likely facing large budget deficits, causing them to carve funds from anywhere and everywhere – including healthcare and education.

Of great healthcare concern, Texas legislators are proposing deep cuts to mental health care services, which if passed, will have definite ripples throughout our state. It is a no-win for healthcare professionals or the millions of Texans we collectively serve.

In addition to those cuts, though, Texas legislators are also proposing $10 billion cuts in state education spending, likely resulting in widespread teacher layoffs and decreased funding for individual schools throughout the state. Teachers and education advocates are rallying, for sure. If there is one profession I love as dearly as nursing, it’s education. As I look back at my own life, it was the great teachers that helped shape my thoughts about the world and myself. Teachers made me question and believe, push forward and pull back, encouraged me on when I thought I could not go farther, and spoke greatness into my life. Thank goodness for my teachers. I want the same for my own children.

Nothing seems to capture this thought better than poetry slammer Taylor Mali‘s What Teachers Make.

Whether you live in Texas or not, face an education budget crisis or not, tell the teachers in your life what they have meant and continue to mean to you as a professional. And if your state is facing education cuts, consider advocating for the noble profession, as well.