Letter from Karina below - I made posters that are now t-shirts for wearing to this 3/26 - see prior entries - please contact me if you know anyone who can come Thursday!
Dear Boston Schools parent,
It seems like a long time ago that I wrote asking for your help at our rally at the first School Committee meeting in February. Since then the School budget seems to have dominated all our lives. Now, so many people are involved that I can't write you a personal email like I did last time; I hope you'll forgive me.
Yesterday we got a particularly nasty shock: as you know, Boston got no money from the first round of funding from the stimulus package. So, we called the State House to ask when we would get our share. They told us we wouldn't. That's right - you read it correctly!
The governor wants to give the money that President Obama intended for needy school districts to Belmont and Wellesley - while telling Boston to deal with its own problems.
While this tells us a lot about how the Governor views Boston, it's not the end of the process - the House of Representatives and the Senate do have a chance to weigh in. I'm writing to you because I need your help. This bad news makes our lobby day at the State House on Thursday even more critical. Please show up at noon, even for just an hour. We need to be there in force
to show the Governor that Boston will not accept his decision, and that we parents need to be heard.
If you remember, the last time I wrote, I told you someone at City Hall had asked me, "Where's the moral outrage?" I'm sure the Governor's attitude toward Boston, and the consequences it will have on all our children makes you as angry as it makes me.
Please join your fellow parents at the State House, Thursday March 26th at noon to show that anger and to tell Boston's senators and Representatives that we won't be left out in the cold!
We need everyone to be there.
Thank you for your help,
Karina Meiri
BPSparents
For more information and to register for lobby day go to
http://www.bpsparents.org
Screenshot of Channel 7 Coverage - thanks to the organizers for printing out and hanging the posters! How is it that they started this article with "Dozens" when they were about 700 people - a little off-base in their estimates!!!! Images of the "save the arts" trash can design that I made on t-shirts and DVDs. Ginny still has some t-shirts left - size large if people want to purchase - all proceeds to BLS Arts and BLS Home & School.
Jill and I attempt a media intervention with Fox News who arrived at our school to cover vampire rumors and were not going to cover the budget- they let us speak! Thanks! Picture further down, nothing lining up right. Also further down BPS parent Kenneth holding the poster I made with his moving quote from an earlier BPS school committee hearing.
