Send a message now to City Council: please don’t cut school budgets or the capital plan!

June 14, 2023

Our annual Parent Action Conference on Saturday was a great success, and we will have follow-up information soon with links to some of the presentations and videos.

One of the issues we covered was the looming budget cuts to schools. Though the DOE says that schools’ initial school funding for next year will equal their initial funding this year, this claim is deceptive, because in many cases, dollars used to keep teachers on staff in many schools are being cut and replaced with other funding that can only be used for more restricted purposes, such as professional development. Moreover, some schools may be asked to give back funds mid-year, and much less additional funding is likely to be provided over the course of the year, because more budget allocations have been posted up front.

In fact, the initial budgets schools are receiving for next year are now about $800 million less than they were as of March of this year. As a result, we have already heard of several schools that will be forced to excess staff – once again.

1. So please, send a message NOW to your City Council member, by clicking here. Urge them to demand an accounting of the entire funding to be provided to schools next year compared to this year before approving the education budget, including requiring separate school-level Units of Appropriation. The message we’ve composed also asks them to reject the proposed capital plan unless it is expanded, as it would cut 22,000 seats from the plan approved in June 2021—just when we need more space to lower class size, as I explain in the Gotham Gazette. (You can check the table here to see how many seats are being cut from your district.)  We also ask Council Members to co-sponsor a new bill,  introduced by Education Chair Rita Joseph, that would require more detailed and accurate reporting of class size at the school level.

2. SAVE the date! We are holding our annual Skinny award dinner Wed. June 28 at 6 PM, honoring Rep. Jamaal Bowman, former Bronx principal and now progressive trailblazer in Congress, fighting to protect and improve our public schools. You can purchase a ticket here.

3. Finally, we’d appreciate if you could ask your principal or School Leadership team members ASAP if your school will be excessing teachers or unable to replace teachers who are retiring, and email us with any information you get back to [email protected].

Thanks!