For 10 days in early October, a dedicated group of teachers, parents and education advocates marched 150 miles from New York City to Albany. Their goal: to shine a spotlight on the state’s failure to properly fund public schools.

For Mindy Rosier, a science teacher at P 811, a District 75 school in Harlem, the magnitude of the problem justified every step she took.

“We’re all owed this obscene amount of money,” said Rosier. “This is money our students need.”

Ten years ago, in a case brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a nonprofit advocacy group, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that the state government had violated the state constitution by shortchanging New York’s neediest schools. The court ordered Albany to redress this injustice, and the state pledged an additional $5.5 billion in basic operating aid. But when the 2008 fiscal crisis took hold, the state froze its education funding. Now, eight years later, even as state school aid has increased for the past few years, Albany continues to owe public schools $3.9 billion, according to a new report by the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York and the Alliance for Quality Education. New York City alone is owed $1.6 billion.

Rosier, whose school serves special needs students, sees the real-life impact of these missing funds in the form of old faucets, aging carpet and outdated computers. These disadvantages seem all the more conspicuous because the District 75 school is co-located with a Success Academy charter school.

“We’re reminded every day how our school is the have-nots and they’re the haves,” she said.

Rosier was among a group of about 20 people who walked the entire route. It was an arduous trek, with the walkers averaging 15 miles each day.

“This is grueling on the body, grueling on the mind,” Rosier confessed about halfway through the journey. “But we’re all determined, and we’re all troopers.”

Teachers, students, parents and elected officials often joined the core group for stretches along the way as the walk passed through places like Schenectady and Poughkeepsie, and many more showed their support on social media platforms using the hashtag #EdWalk.

Zakiyah Ansari, the Alliance for Quality Education’s advocacy director, made the 150-mile trek. Ten years prior, Ansari brought her daughters with her to the state Court of Appeals to hear the arguments in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case.

“I never thought they still wouldn’t see those benefits 10 years later,” she said.

When Ansari, Rosier and the rest of their dogged group, footsore and exhausted, at last reached Albany on Oct. 11, they found fresh energy in the cheers and excitement of supporters and allies gathered at a rally outside the Court of Appeals.

“It was electrifying,” said Ansari.

The walkers’ march came to an end at the State Capitol. There, in that building’s historic halls, the fight for school funding will continue in the next legislative session beginning in January as the walkers promised to press the state government for the billions of dollars owed.

The UFT, which supported the walk, plans to make school funding one of its top lobbying priorities in Albany this year.

“We need the state to get on board and prioritize the neediest of our children,” said Ansari.

Rosier agreed. “After 10 years, enough is enough.”