BRANDENBURG, Ky. (WHAS11) -- It was a show of school spirit at a rally held at Meade County High School Wednesday afternoon, drumming up the crowd of several hundred in attendance not to support a sports team but rather the team of educators leading classrooms of students in Kentucky every day.
"I can think of the 30 years almost of my training and teaching, this has never happened," Meade County Schools Superintendent John Millay said. "And the time is now that we do stand up for what's important - our future."
"Both my parents teach. They're both in the school system," John Michael Saylor, a senior at Meade County High School, said. "So, I'm here to show I support them and teachers make an impact in my life, and so I think they deserve to be fairly treated when it comes to anything."
Several Meade County teachers organized the rally in response to the pension reform bill signed by Governor Matt Bevin and the budget veto, demanding the state fully fund public education.
"Every day we're losing out on money for transportation for our students, for materials that our students need," Stuart Pepper Middle School teacher Casey Mattingly said. "All of the things students really need could go away. And that's heartbreaking."
"The economic reality is if we don't get more revenue and value education like we have in the past, those realities will continue," Millay said.
For students like Saylor, they said even though they may be young, they also want their voices heard when it comes to their futures.
"Once we found out and we realized what exactly is going on, we realized just how terrible it is and we want to be able to stand up for our teachers," he said.
Teachers said while part of their battle is for their retirements, funding public education is mostly about their students and the future of the Bluegrass State.
"We've got their backs and we want them to know that we're there for them," Mattingly said.
"I feel like the only thing we can do is to be there and support them right back because they have ours, so we must have theirs," Saylor said.
"I don't think we cannot afford to invest in the students, in the future of the kids in the Commonwealth," Millay said.
Meade County teachers said there have been discussions about attending the rally in Frankfort Friday, but no official decision has been made regarding school closures.