The final Budget Hearing of the Boston School Committee (BSC) will be held tonight, Tuesday March 18th at 6pm at the Edison K8 School, 60 Glenmont Road, in Brighton. Next week’s meeting will be the meeting where the BSC votes on the proposed BPS budget.
Come and support parent Curley parent Melissa Elow as she delivers her testimony on the impact of the proposed budget cuts.
Wear your Curley T-Shirts and proudly stand with her as she delivers her testimony, and stand also with the parents of the 21 other schools (so far…) we are working with.
We hope to have a strong presence at this meeting, and we hope you will all join us.
Three More Parents Have Testified
Tonight’s budget hearing is only the latest one of many at which Curley parents have attended, delivered testimony, and supported fellow Curley and BPS parents.
Two weeks ago, in Hyde Park, parent Amy Sobota gave a very powerful and heartfelt testimony on behalf of the Curley and the wider BPS family.
Unfortunately, since the hearing was not at Court Street, the usual video feed is not available. You can nonetheless read her testimony below:
Amy Sobota – BSC Testimony – 030414
Last Wednesday, as there were two back to back meetings, two Curley parents delivered testimony.
The first was Noreen Power (pictured above), who spoke on behalf of two other Curley parents, Nilfa Villalona, and Yoisy Santos.
Their testimony can be seen at the 1 hour 30 minute mark of the video here. You may also read their testimony below:
Noreen Power-Yoisy Santos-Nilfa Villanova – BSC Testimony – 031214
Curley SPC co-chair Dave Demerjian (pictured above) then testified with an equally powerful piece of testimony you can see here at the 2 hour 12 minute mark. You may also read Dave’s testimony below:
Dave Demerjian – BSC Testimony – 031214
In each of these 3 meetings, we were proud to stand in silent solidarity with the many other parents who spoke on behalf of their schools and the wider BPS family. Though all of their testimony were equally powerful, the testimony of the parents from the Mary Lyon, and the many parents who have spoken in support of the Adult Program are especially worthy of note.
Please come and support every BPS parent tonight.
We Have Been Busy – Join Us!
In addition to the other testimony Laurie Ciardi, Carrie Fletcher and myself have delivered at the BSC, we have helped build a collection of parents from 21 BPS schools (so far), we have held meetings with City Councilors Matt O’Malley, Tito Jackson, and Ayanna Pressley’s Chief of Staff, we have met with Superintendent John McDonough, Mayor Walsh’s education advisor George Perry, School Committee member Michael Loconto, State Senator and Senate Education chair Sonia Chang Diaz, we have testified with other parents at the joint Ways and Means Committee at the State House, and we have met with Representative Jeffrey Sanchez.
We have embarked on a large and successful email campaign, and we have organized a meeting of the State’s Boston delegation to which we have invited the Boston School Committee members to attend as our guests and partners. We have established a thriving organization email list for both the Curley and for a BPS-wide parent collective, and we continue to meet with State Representatives, Senators and City Councilors as the budget process moves beyond the School Committee, with three meetings planned alone today and tomorrow.
We could not have asked for a better set of dedicated, dynamic, thoughtful, and passionate fellow BPS parent partners from other schools either. The 21 schools coalition we are a part of stretch from across Boston, from Brighton to Mattapan, from the South End to Hyde Park, from Dorchester to West Roxbury.
Next week, Monday March 24th at 6:30 pm, we will host City Councilor Tim McCarthy, and we hope everyone can join us to brief him.
For more information or to find out how to get involved, please contact Heshan Berents-Weeramuni, Carrie Fletcher, or Jill Lazer.
