SAVE OUR SAN BRUNO SCHOOLS NOW! Rally on Thursday, March 4

I attended an insightful meeting last night of PTA/PTO Presidents in San Bruno. I learned that ALL of the public schools in California are expecting a lot of teacher and counselor layoffs next week. San Bruno’s only middle school, Parkside Intermediate will possibly have the most layoffs cutting out music (they have an awesome marching band), art, leadership, counseling, and more. Our elementary schools will have no art, music, PE, large classroom sizes of 30+ kids per class, no English tutoring, GATE programs, loss of funds to improve libraries and to supply instructional material like BOOKS and one school, I hear, will loose up to 7 teachers, leaving them with 4!!

Even if one doesn’t have children or children in school, communities are affected! The governor’s proposed budget cuts to education changes the whole dynamics of a school and the city it’s in. I even heard that in this challenging economy, there are some people who can’t afford to keep their kids in private schools and are depending on public schools to be there! If schools struggle our property values will go down because some won’t want to live near a school in trouble! Crime will go up and residents will get nervous! It could potentially be a BIG change in our lives and not for the better, either.

We are so proud of our public schools! Parents, teachers, and friends spend a lot of time and energy working together to keep our children’s schools a safe and fun learning environment for this to happen!

Anyways, the San Bruno PTA/ PTO (which consists of all San Bruno public schools) is having a rally that everyone is invited to on Thursday, March 4th on El Camino Real between San Bruno Ave. and City Hall 3:30-4:30. At 5:00, we will all be outside of City Hall where there will be some guest speakers. We have the support of our mayor and are grateful for that! Everyone is invited including parents, students, teachers, neighbors, friends, and co-workers! We need every voice!

A few dates to remember are Wednesday, March 10 7:00 Crestmoor Elementary School – A budget meeting where decisions will be made to determine the future of our schools. Monday, March 15 –A sad day where teachers will be notified via a “pink slip” whether or not they will be able to keep their jobs.

Feel free to pass on this link to other people you know who might find this news interesting. If you want to join us on Thursday after school on El Camino Real, you are more than welcome.

The website below is the California Teacher’s Association website that talks a lot about March 4 and the budget cuts.

http://www.cta.org/Issues-and-Action/Budget-Crisis/Index.aspx