Bainbridge Island teachers taught the Legislature a lesson this week: Ignoring the needs of the education system is not the way to get an A for effort.

On Thursday, island teachers abandoned their classrooms and lesson plans for a one-day strike to protest the state’s chronic underfunding of schools. Island teachers joined a massive statewide effort to bring the underfunding into the spotlight through walking off the job. Educators in other school districts have already held walkouts or have strikes planned in the coming weeks.

As far as funding basic education goes, Bainbridge teachers think the Legislature gets a big, fat F.

“In teaching, we always struggle with having to do so many things and it has gotten progressively worse,” said Keri Schmit, a Woodward eighth-grade teacher. “Every year the Legislature puts new mandates on us, and they’re unfunded mandates.”

Schmit said it pained her to see school canceled due to the protest, but felt — like many of her colleagues — that it was the only way teachers’ voices would be heard.

Over the past 24 years of her career, she’s watched fellow teachers leave the field and confers with current teachers who are looking at other professions — a prospect that bothers her.

Many have become “disappointed, frustrated and overwhelmed,” she said, by the fact that basic education is grossly underfunded by nearly $3,000 per student annually.

For her, the simple fact that lawmakers are disconnected from the everyday realities of the classroom has been proven time and time again by the state’s inability to fund education properly. They aren’t listening, she said, as phone calls, pleas and letters from teachers have been ignored when they demanded the state Constitution’s mandate for adequate funding of public education be followed.

“I feel like I had a lot more freedom to do what things I thought was best for students. Now, I have politicians telling me — who are not even educators — what is the best for my students,” Schmit said.

The walkout was approved by union members earlier this week, and by no small measure — 99 percent of teachers were for the strike. All public schools on the island were closed because of the walkout, and some after-school activities were canceled as well.

Originally, the strike was planned for May 1, but a large school carnival fund-raiser may have been impacted by that date, said David Layton, the president of the Bainbridge Island Education Association, the union that represents public teachers on the island.

Teachers decided to protest a day earlier instead.

During the busy morning commuting hours Thursday, dozens of teachers and parents waved signs near the Bainbridge ferry terminal to remind islanders about the state’s impasse at funding education.

BHS football coach Andy Grimm said that the demonstrators standing at the intersection of Highway 305 and Winslow Way got many horn honks and hand waves of support from passing commuters in cars, bikes and on foot.

Though some gathered were family and supporters, “about 90 percent” of the sign holders were faculty members from around the district, he added.

The group had assembled in the morning to reach the most commuters possible, Grimm said as he waved to some newly arrived Avalara employees — BHS alumni, he said — coming up the hill from the latest ferry sailing from Seattle.

Slogans splashed on signs included “Our Kids, Our Future,” “It’s time for smaller class sizes,” “Honk 4 Schools” and “Fully fund education.”

Some of those same educators then made their way to Woodward Elementary to get pumped up for a caravan trip to Olympia where they planned to meet with local state representatives, including Sen. Christine Rolfes.

Rolfes’ legislative assistant, Linda Owens, offered an update to nearly a hundred teachers, parents and students gathered in the parking lot of Woodward.

“I appreciate how hard it is for teachers to go on strike,” Owens told the crowd. “She [Rolfes] is constantly battling all the time to get education fully funded.”

Owens told teachers the agenda for the Legislature’s Special Session — which started Wednesday — includes several bills the House and Senate are working on together to try to meet the demands of the McCleary v. State of Washington decision. The ruling by the Washington Supreme Court unanimously found that the state of Washington was failing in its “paramount duty” to properly fund basic education for K-12 students.

Some of those current bills — if passed — won’t go into effect until 2017, including proposals to raise teacher salaries without the assistance of local levies.

“It’s a long, slow process, let me tell you,” said Owens, of the plans that could cost upward of $1 billion a year.

Will Brown, a Bainbridge High senior, showed up bright and early at Woodward to show his support for teachers even though he had the day off.

“I think it’s important for the students to stand with the teachers today,” he said.

Brown said since the start of his high school career, he’s noticed huge cuts to programs that aren’t STEM-related, which is a disappointment to him and others.

When it comes down to it, he said, it isn’t the fault of teachers that student interests and needs are being ignored.

Like his teachers, Brown blames the Legislature.

“It’s the Legislature neglecting the students, not the teachers,” he said. “I hope they see we’re watching them, and we know that our constitutional rights have been violated and we’re holding them accountable.”

The cancellation of school due to the strike is being treated by district officials as an “unplanned snow day.”

District officials will schedule a make-up day to comply with state laws on the number of days students must be in school.

If the board approves a make-up day at the end of the school year, the last day of school will be Wednesday, June 17.