Power of Ten Update
In This Issue:
1. Canvassing Opportunities
2. Candidates Forum
3. Transportation Discrimination
1) Canvassing Opportunities
Join our candidates as we go door to door talking to voters! There will be two shifts on two Saturdays.
May 11 we will meet in the parking lot at the Pascack Community Center, 87 New Clarkstown Rd, in Nanuet, first shift at 11:00 AM and second shift at 1:00 PM.
May 18 we will meet in the parking lot at the 7-11, 65 Kennedy Dr, Spring Valley, first shift at 11:00 AM and second shift at 1:00 PM.
Wear your most comfortable shoes and your warmest smile!
2) Candidates Forum May 13
The Spring Valley NAACP Civic Engagement Committee presents: “East Ramapo School Board Candidates Forum”
Monday, May 13 at 7:00 PM
Louis Kurtz Civic Center, 9 North Main Street, Spring Valley
Cosponsor: Spring Valley NAACP Young Adult Committee
We encourage you to come and find out about the candidates before voting! All are welcome as there is no cost to attend. Audience members will be allowed to ask questions during the forum. Join us at this free community event!
3) Transportation Discrimination
The board is proposing to make changes to the school schedules. They say it is in response to rising transportation costs. But the cost-cutting measures won’t be applied to busing for non-public schools.
The Journal News: East Ramapo transportation changes would affect public schools first
If the district is not addressing the skyrocketing costs of gender-segregated and courtesy busing for non-public schools, its not because they can’t. In 2016, the Suffern school district aligned busing schedules for non-public schools, to save costs. Some of those affected called it discrimination:
The Journal News: Cuts to Ramapo school busing anger parents
There are serious questions about the impact of the proposed changes. How will earlier start times affect high school students (the most recent studies recommend a later start time for high school age children)? Will a 6:15 AM bus stop time increase our already unacceptable drop-out rate? How much will the extra pay for teachers and monitors cost?
However, the biggest question is this: Do the students in public school matter as much to the school board as those in non-public school?
The Greenberg report said: “Most disturbing, Board appears to favor the interests of private schools over public schools.” He said there had been “No meaningful effort made to distribute pain of deep budget cuts fairly among private and public schools.”
East Ramapo has had more failed budgets than any other district in the state. The ones who vote down the budgets are insulated from consequences by the school board. All the negative consequences always fall on someone else’s children.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Our system was designed for majority rule, because the majority were in public school. There was no provision made in state law (from which local school authorities derive their power) for districts with a majority of students in non-public school. That could be changed at the state level. We continue to urge Albany to address the issue of “Governance with the Consent of the Governed”.