The North Carolina General Assembly needs to maintain the funding it allotted last fiscal year for teaching assistants.

As it stands, the House and Senate are at odds about how to proceed with the House wanting to keep funding the same at $375 million and the Senate wanting to cut it in half to $182 million.

Instead of keeping teaching assistant positions, the Senate believes more money should be spent to hire more teachers in the next two years — thus reducing class sizes — and would continue cutting the budget down to $75 million in the 2016 to 2017 fiscal year.

It’s a nice thought, Senators, but sadly it’s also way off base.

Teaching assistants hold vital roles in the classrooms of younger grades for a variety of reasons, such as helping the teachers keep order in the classroom, assisting with learning activities, keeping an extra eye on the students and being able to give more attention to students who need it.

As all parents can attest, watching after young children is no easy task, and in the classroom setting, it’s unrealistic to expect only one adult to do so.

Even if the General Assembly hires more teachers to reduce the teacher to student ratio in the classroom, this does not eliminate the need for teaching assistants. Any situation with more than five or six young children needs another adult’s help — and it’s doubtful the Senate is considering those kinds of drastic reductions in class size.

The budget cuts will also find teachers alone and overwhelmed in the classroom while the General Assembly haggles over how many more teachers to hire, if they even end up deciding to funnel the money toward that purpose.

Parents and legislators: this issue is also about the wellbeing of children. Having the teaching assistants means another person keeping an eye out for a child’s safety, and it also means a child will get the most out of his or her education with an orderly classroom and extra help with learning activities if needed.

Today’s children are the future of our state and our nation. They deserve the best from the legislators, and school system employees deserve a General Assembly that has their backs.

Budget the money and don’t cut corners.