Clever folks in the state Capitol are still posturing and arguing as they hack and slash their way through an anticipated $26.3 billion deficit. Up for negotiation are millions of dollars in cuts and tens of thousands of public jobs – numbers too huge for most of us to understand and digest.

What we are left to contemplate are parks and programs closed to the public, neighbors and colleagues furloughed or out of work, people we relied on who won't be there when we need them most.

At Pioneer Elementary School in Davis, school budget cuts are personified by the loss of 58-year-old Mark Stevenson, whose late-career foray into teaching has meant layoffs from three different districts in 10 years. That Stevenson is the kind of teacher colleagues herald and parents laud is really beside the point – and he knows it. "Almost every time, it's a money thing," he says philosophically. "You can't fight a business that is cutting back because of a money thing."

A one-time college dropout and print shop owner who went back for a degree and a teaching credential in his 40s, Stevenson has received almost every one of his classroom assignments days before the start of a new school year. Some years, he even started weeks into the school year when a teacher was out of commission or there were too many kids to shoehorn into another classroom. For him, there is no job security, no employment consistency.

One year, at a different district, a teacher strike at the end of the year sidelined him from his sixth-grade classroom. He says that was the year he had to slip lesson plans to his students so they could bring them to their substitute instructor. That was also the year he had to cross picket lines to sneak into the sixth-grade graduation because, for Mark Stevenson, being there is everything.

"I need to know what is going on in their lives," he says of his students. "That's why I sometimes went to their baseball games and sometimes went to their cricket games. Kids need to know that you care about them. When I ask them to do something, they have to know I am asking not just to be arbitrary but because this is the best thing for them under the circumstances."

As part of an exploration of ancient civilizations, Stevenson's sixth-graders at Pioneer this year formed their own government with its own currency. They even created a court system where classmates helped make decisions about peer discipline. He says the students rose to the challenge and dealt fairly with one another while getting a hands-on experience of Greek city-states.

Almost every June, Stevenson takes home a pink slip and tries to figure out where – and when – his teaching career will resume. This year is no exception.

Fortunately, he still owns 1,300 square feet of storage space to keep massive quantities of Egyptian-inspired teaching props, enough to transform a spare classroom into an ancient pyramid and tomb for students and their families to tour.

Involving families in school is a big part of Stevenson's philosophy. This year, he rented a horse and a large carriage from an Old Sacramento vendor and offered his sixth-graders, their parents and their siblings carriage rides on a winter evening. Other family nights included an evening of math games, and an evening of shared oral history and storytelling. He says gatherings at school are part of connecting students to their greater community, where we are all pieces of a greater whole. To illustrate that concept, Stevenson's students this year created 8-by-8-inch jigsaw pieces with their names that fit together to make an enormous puzzle the entire class could view and appreciate on a classroom wall.

Where does Stevenson fit into the jigsaw puzzle of California employment? As a latecomer to a system that is laying people off, Stevenson knows he is ultimately a number in a numbers game that dictates who gets to stay and who gets laid off. He spent 30 years as the owner of a business where "I would hire people or advance people based on their talent." He understands that in California schools, job retention doesn't work that way. In the Davis district, he says he's among the last 30 teachers hired, so his chances of being rehired in the fall are slim. He says the superintendent's office knows how to reach him; for now, he's visiting relatives and maybe traveling to Europe.

Meanwhile, as really smart legislators and educators haggle over budget cuts in Sacramento, we at Pioneer Elementary are left with the image of a really tall guy with white hair walking out on the field during lunch recess to watch a bunch of sixth-graders play on a warm day at the end of the school year. Two sixth-grade girls are running along beside him. They slip their hands into his, and together, the teacher and the kids head back to class.

Jill Duman is a journalist, parent and part-time playground attendant