Invitation to our June 27 "Skinny award" dinner; and please sign our petition to Gov. Hochul to sign the class size bill now!

 

Dear folks-

Class Size Matters would like to invite you to our “Skinny Award” dinner to be held Monday, June 27 at 6 PM. This our first fundraiser in three years, and especially important this year as we have something really momentous to celebrate: the passage of a new state law that will require NYC schools to lower class size to much smaller levels.

We are honoring the groups and individuals who made this happen, and thus gave us the real “Skinny” on NYC schools:

• The Alliance for Quality Education, for leading the successful battle to provide full Foundation aid to NYC schools at last;
• State Senator Robert Jackson and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, for introducing the original bills requiring our schools to lower class size;
• Assembly Education Chair Michael Benedetto and NYC Senate Education Chair John Liu, for shepherding the class size bill to passage this session;
• A special "Parent Visionary" award to Johanna Garcia, education advocate and Chief of Staff to Sen. Jackson, for her persistent and passionate advocacy over many years to achieve the goal of fully equitable class sizes for NYC children.

Wine and light food will be served!

For more information and to purchase tickets to attend either in person or remotely, please click here. If you’d like to contribute to the organization without attending, you can do so here.

2. Sadly, despite all our advocacy, briefings and testimony, and all your emails and calls, the City Council agreed to a budget deal with the Mayor that did not restore any of the $215 million cuts to school budgets for next year; a deal that will be voted on tomorrow night. It is likely that in many schools, this will force class sizes higher and/or cause the loss of critical services, and I urge you to work with your School Leadership Teams to try to ensure that your school's core teaching staff is protected as much as possible.

Clearly, Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks have no intention of obeying the will of the Legislature to require them to lower class size, and instead are thumbing their nose at them, as I say here. Which makes it even more critical that Governor Hochul to sign the class size bill as soon as possible, which will give us legal leverage to stop these cuts or at least minimize their damage.

So please, call the Governor at 518-474-8390 , and message her here. Tell her: Please sign the class size bill as soon as possible so that NYC class sizes do not increase and instead, our students are provided with the same smaller classes that kids in the rest of the state already receive. We have also posted a petition that you can sign here.

I’ll be in Albany on Thursday, and if we get enough signatures, I’ll try to deliver it personally to her and/or her staff.

Hope to see you on June 27!

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters