We had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting with parents from all different boroughs that worked with AQENY. We came on time, which was apparently a little late. A few parents and two AQENY people were sitting at a large conference table. A slideshow was on a TV at the front of the room. We took notes as they talked, our contact person, Maria, was translating the presentation for two Spanish speaking parents at the table. It was hard to keep up with the conversation, they talked a lot about government issues we didn’t understand, so this is a collection of what I understood. Budget cuts are cutting important programs like homework help, robotics and computer classes. Because of these budget cuts, one parent’s school was asking each parent for $300 dollars a month, which defeats the idea of a free public school. Another’s school had lots of kids and too little space, with less funding then other schools in their neighborhood. The kids were trying to learn in such a cramped environment, it seemed impossible. When the market crashed in 2009 it left schools with minimal funding, and hasn’t gone up much since then. Afterwards, Governor Cuomo cut $1.3 billion dollars from schools. They showed us a website called hownysrobbed.nyc. I checked it out and my brother’s school, Brooklyn Tech, which is known for being a good public school, is owed $11,801,275.26 dollars. That’s $2,164.58 per student. According to the website that money could hire 72 teachers, maintain the arts program for 52 years and maintain the library for 51. All the money going to charter schools in the entire state is divided up, but NYC get minimal. They also told us about their campaign called #iampubliced. It’s a social media campaign to raise awareness for underfunded public schools. We saw this campaign in PS 98 when we visited earlier. They explained that everyone should know their legislators, and they should tell their legislators of issues they find in their communities schools. They explained a lot about Albany, they were bringing less people than last year because they couldn’t afford the buses to transport them. Usually there’s 1,000 people from all over the state, but this year they’re taking 200 people from the city and 200 people from upstate. During the parents meeting, even though I didn’t catch everything, I really learned about the financial side of all of this and how it directly affects schools and people even if we don’t always notice it because the schools aren’t falling apart at the edges.
