On this November’s lengthy list of ballot initiatives, Proposition 1 is dead last. And it’s on the back side.

“We’re worried people will get ballot fatigue,” said Sharon Rodgers, a parent with kids in middle and high school in the district.

Rodgers is president of Schools First, the campaign leading the support of Proposition 1, a Seattle Public Schools operation levy. Typically, the schools ask for money once annually, in February. So this levy is a little unusual.

Proposition 1 asks voters for 3 percent of the district’s operating budget for 3 years—$48.2 million. Since 2008, the state has cut funding to Seattle schools by $32 million, Rodgers said, and they’re now facing an education funding crisis.

Roughly half the $48.2 million will go to cushion the severity of those cuts, according to the district’s website. The other half will fund new projects, such as textbooks for classrooms and a new contract approved by the school board and the teachers’ union this year.

That’s the part that Dorothy Neville has a problem with. Neville is a district parent leading the campaign to strike down the levy. She doesn’t see why the district wants to funnel money toward new projects when they’re faced with such a huge deficit.

“It would be like, you’re having trouble paying your rent, so your parents send you a bit of money, and you buy clothes with it,” Neville said.

The money the levy allocates for the teacher’s contract also doesn’t sit right with Neville. That contract implements a new system where students’ test scores will be factored into the teacher evaluation process.

Ballard science teacher India Carlson is also against the levy. She’s seen the effects of budget cuts firsthand in her classroom, and wishes more money would go to offset cuts to classrooms.

“I have Somali students this year, and we have no Somali speaker available to our high school at all,” Carlson said. “Not one day a week, not two—none.”

Rodgers maintains that this levy is necessary for the district to keep programs running and teachers in the classroom.

“We don’t expect the school system to stand still. We need to update and we need to make changes in some places,” Rodgers said. “This won’t make up for the cuts that have already been suffered, but it’s what we can do right now.”