Yesterday, Washington State PTA sent an email alert out to Seattle Public School families living in the 43rd District (Wallingford, Fremont, Capitol Hill) about a legislative hearing today that includes proposed budget cuts to K-12 education. In the alert, the PTA asks that families take action by contacting legislators to oppose these cuts which includes shortening the 180-day school year by four days.
On November 21, Governor Chris Gregoire proposed several options to help balance the state budget which currently faces a $1.5 billion shortfall. Among them include raising the state sales tax by a half cent or cutting the school year short by four days. The shortening of the school year would result in an estimated $99 million dollar savings, covering about 1/5 of Gregoire’s proposed $500 million budget cuts to education.
The Washington PTA opposes the proposal to shorten the school year, citing that the state would have to “redefine the Program of Basic Education and argue that children don’t need time in class”. The Program of Basic Education was established in 1977 to define the requirements necessary for basic education. It was established that the school year would be 180 days.
Here’s the the email alert:
To Parents of Students in the WA State 43th District (Wallingford, Fremont, Capitol Hill)
We really need your help to contact your WA State legislators about the proposed cuts to K-12 education. In the 43rd District you have access to critical decision makers –House Speaker Chopp and the Senate Chair of the Ways and Means, Senator Ed Murray. They are making huge decisions on education and are reporting that they are not hearing opposition from the community – that’s us.
Please do the following ASAP today as there’s a hearing tomorrow morning and we need as many people to respond ASAP
– Take 1 minute to read and take action as requested by the Action Alert and 1 more minute to also call the legislative hotline. There’s a hearing tomorrow morning and we need as many people to respond as possible
– Send this email alert to neighbors and friends who also live in the 43th and ask them to email and call.
o Reaching out beyond the 43th is good, so no worries there, we need to contact all legislators as well
Thank you very much for your time and dedication to WA state’s kids.
Discover more from Wallyhood
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
What about taxing the rich? What ever happened to common sense?
How is it that the meetings are taking place today and that absolutely nobody heard a peep about this until yesterday?!
The buzz is that Chopp and Murray have been quoted as saying that they have checked in with people and that they have heard no signficant objections to this plan. Funny, nobody asked me – nor anybody at the schools where my kids attend.
if they shorten the school year, which I bet they do, no matter what we try to do.. will the teachers get to keep their pay rate or will it be reduced by 4/180 as their work load will bereduced/ This also will save the state money?
The challenge though is that state test scores and other school evaluation procedures will NOT be modified or adjusted to account for less school time.
IF SOMEONE POSTS ALL THE APPROPRIATE PEOPLE TO CALL WITH PHONE NUMBERS i WILL CALL THEM ALL. i HATE TYPING AND AS SOME NOTICE i DOTntEDIT MY GLORIOUS MISTAKES. i AM, HOWEVER, AN UNEMPLOYED TEACHER WITH SOME ‘SMARTS’ AND KNOW HOW EDUCATION RUNS.. 25 YRS EXPERIENCE.
Here’s a wa budget calculator- biased as you can tell by the sponsoring site, but interesting to play with:
http://www.educationvoters.org/session-2011/budget/
Anyone who pays dues to their school PTSA should be pissed at the regional and state PTAs for not getting the word out sooner. I got an email late yesterday afternoon (about the hearing today) and started to follow up on contacting my representatives but then had to break up a fight in the basement and never got back to it. That’s a pretty small window of opportunity for speaking up!
The state PTSA is too busy cozying up to groups like Stand 4 Children and LEV and the Gates Foundation in their attempt to get charter schools into Washington to concern themselves with things like alerting parents to K-12 budget cuts hearings. Besides, that plays right into their hands.
Does anybody know what the outcomes of yesterday’s meetings were?
The teachers will surely take a paycut but the school administrators and staff who don’t actually teach will probably be making overtime on the days when school is cancelled. Nothing new here, maybe new for Wallingford but not people who watchdog public employee pay.