Join Parents United For Public Education

FYI: If you have children in public school and in particular, starting kindergarten this year, please read the following information I recently received in an email regarding an important meeting you might want to attend. Feel free to pass this information on to other concerned parents who have children in public school...


As most of you probably know, in less than 3 weeks, The Philadelphia School District (PSD) is about to slash its budget. Full-day kindergarten will be reduced to half-day and self-contained Learning Support Kindergarten will only be offered at only one school. Loesche Elementary is losing its Self-Contained Learning Support Kindergarten class after this year. All of this is because the School District of Philadelphia is cutting its budget on the backs of teachers and students.

How much learning and teaching can get done in half-day kindergarten when they are trying to squeeze in breakfast, snack, teach all the subjects, and possibly squeeze in more kids? The answer to the budget problems is NOT to cut education for children! Also, they can't take children from intensive Early Intervention and Autistic Support and dump them into Regular Ed kindergarten classes of 30 to 35 kids because they get lost! This is short-sighted and flawed thinking. Early Childhood Education is so important, yet this is the area they keep cutting!

Arlene Ackerman is complaining that she doubts they will ever agree on what should be cut from the budget to make it work. Cutting kindergarten and Learning Support is NOT the answer! We need to give them solutions and solid ideas on what areas to cut. Corbett and the PSD are not listening to the teachers, the unions, and others who have been protesting. If they're going to listen at all, it will take "angry parents" to get the job done!

Please join Parents United For Public Education for an independent, parent-led, school-centered, strategic plan to address the PSD budget crisis on:

Tuesday, May 17th, 6:00-8:00 pm
West Philadelphia Seventh Day Adventist Church
4527 Haverford Avenue (46th & Haverford Avenue)

The District’s $600+ million budget crisis is falling on the backs of children and families. The loses will include teachers, librarians, nurses, programs, safety personnel, transpasses, and yellow school buses. Meanwhile, consider the actions of City and District leaders:

1. It is business as usual at the District. They hold on to pet programs like an 18-day summer school program for $24 million that would pay for full-day kindergarten for an entire year.
2. The District plans to spend an additional $ 4.7 million on textbooks for this 18-day summer program.
3. The District spends $ 100 million on contracts that they have failed to make public.
4. Executive salaries are at an all-time high, but teachers and staff making a fraction of these salaries are asked to re-negotiate their contracts.
5. Even though property taxes have gone up, none of that increase has gone to the schools. The City of Philadelphia has not significantly increased its contribution to the schools since 2007-2008.

DON’T LET THESE VOICES SPEAK FOR YOU!
Parents need a real voice for schools that put kids ahead of contracts.

PUFPE GOALS:

1. Ensure full-day kindergarten.
2. Ensure free transportation for all public school students.
3. Restore school discretionary funds.
4. Stop funding for extraneous testing, summer school excess, executive salaries, and discretionary contracts.

Parents United for Public Education is an all-volunteer group of parents in the public schools working for accountability and a student-first approach to school budgets. For more information, please email parentsunitedphila@gmail.com