MCCPTA Sends Letter on School Construction to County Executive
In a recent letter to County Executive Ike Leggett and the Montgomery County Council, the Montgomery County Council of PTAs highlighted their efforts to bring awareness at the State level of the school system’s need for additional construction funding due to overcrowding.
Read the complete text of the letter below:
“Since October, our county executive, county council members, members of our Board of Education, and our state delegation have spoken in rare harmony about the need for additional state construction funding for our Montgomery County Public Schools. Many elected officials recently donned yellow construction hats and rallied with PTA members and leaders in Annapolis. This unity in support of our schools has been a welcome, enthusiastically-received sign for the parents of the over 151,000 students now attending MCPS’s increasingly overcrowded, aging, but still instructionally strong public schools.
Now it is March, and the recommended funding for instruction in MCPS is on the table. Home sales are heating up, county revenues are growing, construction cranes are moving overhead; a local economic recovery, unmistakably, is in full swing. Montgomery County is getting back on track.
So what about our children and the actual daily instruction they receive in their schools, even as the system moves to new curriculum and new state standards? What about the achievement gap that the County Council’s staff spent time (and money) researching last year, finding that work needed to be done? What about county support and funds for that school instruction next fiscal year?
Will our schools and teachers have the resources to meet the needs of a student population that is increasingly poor, increasingly not speaking English at home, and close the gap while raising the bar of achievement after a decade of dramatic year-after-year cuts? If you are a Montgomery County leader with revenue and appropriations authority-our County Executive and our Council Councilmembers-you can make that happen by supporting the modest increase in spending requested by the Board of Education and find and back full local funding for our schools.
Our county executive and members of the county council will soon demonstrate if they deeply support schools and students or not. Not only when state money is involved, but when the local money over which they have sole authority is on the line. Parents and children don’t want to hear arguments about ceiling and floors, at least not in the context of budgets; we want to hear about responsible restoration, starting in FY 2015, of funding slashed over the past decade. We want to see an alignment of rhetoric and revenue.
I am optimistic that our local leaders will do right by our children and school. And I know the conclusions I am going to draw before I head to the ballot box in June if the school budget is not fully funded or if the conversations turn back again to MOE (Maintenance of Effort) this spring. And I know 50,000+ Montgomery County PTA members-and registered voters-who will do exactly the same.”
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Sen. Forehand on School Construction Funding (Video)
In this MyMCMedia Extra, Valerie Bonk talks to State Senator Jennie Forehand (District 17) about school construction funding for Montgomery County during the MCC-PTA’s trip to Annapolis. Related posts:
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In this MyMCMedia Extra, Valerie Bonk talks to State Delegate Heather Mizeur about her push to make funding for Montgomery County school construction a priority during the Maryland General Assembly this session. Related posts:
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The MCCPTA, PTA leaders and members boarded a bus took hit the road to Annapolis Friday morning for one cause – to rally for what they say is much needed money for Montgomery County schools. The group will spend the day rallying and lobbying for County students and schools, hoping to make school funding a […]
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