Council hearings Monday, Sen. Liu on class size & budget cuts, and our letter to Gov. Hochul

August 20, 2022

1.This Monday, Aug. 22 starting at 10 AM there will be hearings on the NYC Council’s resolution demanding the Mayor restore $469 million in budget cuts to schools. This resolution, that 35 of 51 Council Members have now co-signed, is sure to pass; but if you have the time, it would be good to testify about the impact of these cuts on your children and their schools.

If you’d like to testify live or via Zoom you should do this today or tomorrow at https://council.nyc.gov/testify/. You can also submit written testimony by emailing it to [email protected] up to 72 hours after the close of the hearing.

2. Sen. John Liu, the chief sponsor of the class size bill in the State Senate, held an Education Town Hall meeting last week that was attended by many parents and teachers. You can check out brief videos with his comments about the importance of class size and the budget cuts to schools on our blog.

3. Finally, a few weeks ago the NY Post published an oped by a plaintiff in the NYSER lawsuit that was full of errors and misleading claims, urging Gov. Hochul to veto the class size bill. On Thursday, we along with other NYSER plaintiffs sent the Governor a letter disputing these false claims, and urging her to sign the bill as soon as possible. You can chime in yourself by emailing her to ask her to sign the bill here.

thanks, Leonie