At an arduous 4-hour meeting held by the Los Angeles March 4th Planning Committee Saturday, time was running short. They had already extended the meeting by 30 minutes. It was their last meeting before the big day: the march for education.

"We can't forget to prepare vinegar rags," veteran activist Julia Wallace from Labor's Militant Voice said. "Actually, I'll prepare 50 and put them in ziplocked bags to pass out if we need them."

"What's the vinegar for?" a high school student attending the meeting asked curiously.

"Tear gas."

The vinegar-soaked rags will counteract the effects of tear gas when wrapped on the faces of protest marchers on Thursday.

On March 4, thousands of students, teachers and members of other labor unions are expected to protest cuts to education and social services across Los Angeles and throughout the state.

In Los Angeles, organizers hope to make a powerful message to Sacramento. Things will get rowdy, they said.

The Los Angeles March 4th Planning Committee has held weekly meetings for months to hammer out the details of the protests in Los Angeles. Everything from the permits to the sound system and music has been arranged. Some of the attendees include students from Santa Monica College, California State University Los Angeles, the International Socialist Organization, Radical Women and more.

There will be protests throughout the day at University of California, Los Angeles; California State University Northridge; California State University Los Angeles and Pershing Square downtown throughout the day. The main rally will be at Pershing Square starting at 3 p.m.

In the past two years, California legislators have cut $17 billion from public education spending forcing tuition hikes, increased class sizes, cutting classes and programs and laying off educators.

One of the hardest hit was the University of California system, which voted to increase tuition 32 percent in last November.

"We're being attacked with privatization and budget cuts. And it's an assault on all levels of public education," Omar Hussein, 25, a high school physics teacher and member of United Teachers Los Angeles, said in an interview.

Currently, the state faces another $19.9 billion deficit. In his State of the State address, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to protect education. But advocates don't simply want to protect education; they want funding for public education fully paid for by the state..

"We don't have a crisis of resources we have a crisis of priorities," said Hussein.

Last Oct. 24, 800 students and activists, who had gathered from across the state at UC Berkeley to formulate a strategy to fight the budget cuts, came up with the idea of Thursday's march. Since then, activists from have been planning regularly.

VIDEO: March 4th Planning Committee prepares for rallies to protest education cuts.

Credit: Albert Sabaté

At its last meeting, the committee spent some time to focus its main points: The financial crisis is an excuse to privatize and make for profit what "they" never wanted to fund in the first place; emphasize money for education not war; demand fully funded education and denounce politicians and poor union leadership.

High school students from Santee and Jefferson who plan to mobilize students and walk out on Thursday were present.

"Since 6th grade they've drilled into our heads: college," said Natalie Mejia, 16, who dreams of becoming a nurse practitioner but is worried about affordability and access to higher education. She hopes to go to San Francisco State University or UC Davis after she graduates.

"I feel students need to take initiative to fight for the whole instead of thinking about themselves," Mejia, the co-master of ceremonies for the March 4th rally, said about her peers.

But coordinating the meeting between the various activist groups and unions has not been simple. A large part of the last few committee meetings has been dedicated to a disagreement over how to respond to a conflict between it and UTLA, the permit holder for the main part of the rally.

The union received the protest permits before the committee, even though the grassroots committee has provided a lot of the direction for the organization.

And now the committee feels strong-armed by UTLA's requirements.  The committee felt that union was stifling its message by toning it down. UTLA requested for approval of the list of the speakers. Some of the committee's requests were not approved.

"We're not trying to micromanage what they say," said UTLA Vice President Josh Peshthalt. "We have to have the confidence that the people who speak won't get us into trouble."

On principle some members of the committee suggested a boycott of the teachers' union rally. Other members stressed building a compromise acknowledging that, in the end, both groups need each other.

All in all, activists hoped that the meeting would be the start of a larger movement for education. They hoped to build solidarity and recruit more people to be activists for education. The activists spoke about the next steps in their fight for education and discussed future dates of action and for organizing conferences among leaders.

Protests in solidarity with California activists are expected on Thursday both nationwide and internationally.