Approve the 2020/21 #JerseyCity Schools Budget: Invest in Jersey City’s Kids

PS #5 PTA Campaign:
Tell the Board of Education:
Approve the 2020/21 Schools Budget - Invest in Jersey City's Kids

The PTA Advocacy Team at Dr. Michael Conti PS #5 School created this "Call to Action" email campaign ahead of the final vote for the 2020/21 schools budget season that we can share with the Board of Education and Superintendent Walker. I am sharing on CivicParent to help spread the word & the advocacy.

You can use the automated email below, which will send the note (which you are free to customize). If you don't want to send to all of those individuals at once, simply copy/paste the note below into your email. All the BOE officials' contact information is provided below for your reference.

Advocate in the manner you feel most comfortable!

Approve the 2020/21 #JerseyCity Schools Budget - Invest in Jersey City's Kids
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To the Elected Officials and leaders of the city of Jersey City - Board of Education, and Superintendent Walker: Many parents, children, residents, voters, and taxpayers have tirelessly advocated since last year demanding local funding for our schools, and we will continue to do so until our schools are the fully-functioning educational institutions our children deserve. I am writing to voice my support for the 2020/21 schools budget as introduced by Superintendent Walker and approved by you all via vote, on March 20th, 2020. I want to thank you for approving a budget that starts to address the needs of our public school children. Unfortunately there is now an added hesitation of whether it’s appropriate to proceed with a budget built for a pre-coronavirus world. My answer to that is YES- because while the economy has temporarily changed our need for funding has not. The current narrative is that the economy has drastically changed since the preliminary approval of the budget on March 20. But, there is always a narrative against funding. Even before March 20, even when Jersey City’s economy was booming, the narrative was still that it wasn’t a right time to adequately fund our public schools. Jersey City didn’t want to fund its schools in the good times, and Jersey City doesn’t want to fund its schools in the bad times. Well, our kids can’t keep waiting for Jersey City to “want” to fund our schools- because one thing we know is that when it comes to funding our schools it seems that there will never be a right time. To be blunt, as part of your mandate, it is your job to change that narrative. This is why our schools need built in local reliable funding- we can’t fund our public schools on a roller coaster of if’s, when’s, and waiting. So at this moment, it is important to remain steadfast with the notion that public schools are just as important to the health and RECOVERY of Jersey City as are any other essential city entities. Public Schools should not remain on the back burner waiting for some imaginary perfect time that we all know will never come. It is irresponsible for Jersey City to villainize the need for public school funding. It would be irresponsible for Jersey City to initiate a recovery plan that not only excludes its public schools, but purposefully leaves them in danger. It would be irresponsible of this BOE to reverse its course now and leave our public schools without a realistic recovery plan. Our public schools entered this pandemic already in crisis because for years, we have failed to locally fund, sending only 24 percent of our property taxes to our public schools while the municipality has taken nearly 50 percent. The systemic, chronic underfunding of our public schools for years has led to a stripping-away of resources over time; when the pandemic hit, it pulled back the curtain on terrible inequities that have been playing out for years in Jersey City. And the kids, teachers and parents are feeling it 1000%. Consider the impact of just last year (2019/20 schools budget), before the Covid-19 Pandemic - which resulted in cuts of: - 160 teachers, - 25 teachers’ aides & assistants, - 20 janitorial, security, and food service staff, - 15 administrators & supervisors, all reading recovery teachers, - 22 out of 25 literacy coaches, - 19 out of 21 math coaches. - Crisis intervention ratios increased from 1:200 to 1:400 students, - Counseling ratios increased from 1:250 to 1:350 students, - Class size ratios, lunch ratios, & recess ratios also ballooned to unmanageable and unsafe numbers. Eventually our schools will have to re-open, and we will be dealing with the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic health pandemic for the foreseeable future. But how can we send our kids back to schools that are NOT SAFE or fully functioning? Our kids are in danger because our public schools were already gutted of resources and still lack the BASIC health and safety measures like nurses at EVERY school and enough custodians to keep our schools clean and safe. Because now, not having enough staff to to take a temperature, sanitize surfaces and keep soap dispensers filled can mean life or death. To re-open safely, our schools will need more teachers to manage school climate, smaller class sizes to maintain safer social distancing measures, nurses to help kids who are sick, custodians to keep the schools clean and safe, and counselors to help the kids navigate the emotionally wrenching post-Pandemic landscape that we are all heading into as a community. In addition, we will need to catch-up the thousands of Jersey City kids who are falling behind because they still don’t have access to the educational resources or mental supports that they need. About one third of our students still do not have a chromebook- and that is because the district does not have the funds to provide them. Our schools need to be able to lift those students up and on a path to success. But our schools can’t do that while lingering in a financial crisis. We are facing unprecedented times, but that can not be used as excuse to abandon the needs of our students. Rather it must be used as a catalyst to motivate us to establish the foundation we need to lift our students to a long overdue success. The need now is greater than ever- for the health and literal safety of our children. You have a fiduciary responsibility as elected trustees to fund our schools- to invest in them and empower them. Our schools must be prepared for what comes next- just like any other essential city entity. In order to be prepared- our public schools need to be funded. So for every reason thrown at you to postpone or abandon our funding needs, please remember that there are over 30,000 reasons to continue that funding fight. Approve the 2020-21 schools budget. Sincerely,
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