Armed with signs to question the Illinois state government's financial well-being, 1600 students between Belvidere North High School and 8th graders at Belvidere Central Middle School walked out of class protesting the state. They're upset their district is not getting paid education funds it was promised and teachers got the chance to participate, too.

"I think the teachers feel uplifted that the students do care this much and we are doing this to save their jobs. They're all very excited that we can come together as a school and include them rather than walking out on them," Senior, Courtney McGill said.

This just one day after the Belvidere High School protests. These students message is similar to theirs. They want Springfield to pay up because they said cuts hurt their education.

"That is the central message we'd like to be coming out of Belvidere right now. The students were extremely well-versed in this process and they took time to understand and look up the facts," Superintendent Michael Houselog said.

57 teachers in District 100 received letters today saying they would be layed off until further notice. Thats down from nearly 150 as originally thought to be cut.

To reduce the number of teachers from nearly 150 to 57, Superintendent Houselog said they've made a number of consolidations regarding teacher positions that saved the district around $250,000.

The cuts were made across the board based on need and many cut are new to the district.

"Our new teachers are innovative teachers. They're fresh out of college with new ideas and new things for our kids," Donna Moeller said.

The students now hope to take this message to Springfield so that by next school year, all 57 teachers will be back in the classrooms.

Students are writing letters to state lawmakers as part of a homework assignment and are also planning a bus trip with other schools to go down to Springfield to deliver them. Tonight, the district may eliminate 6 more teaching positions because enrollment is down.