Regional school budget advocacy events open to Marcellus residents

Stakeholders from 49 Central New York school districts will converge on two different schools next month to draw attention to the ongoing fiscal crisis facing public schools, learn more about the issues and learn how to be better advocates for our public schools.

The Central New York School Boards Association has scheduled two “Our Kids, Our Schools… Our Future” forums – one Feb. 4 at Auburn West Middle School, for districts served by the Cayuga-Onondaga and Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES, and another Feb. 5 at North Syracuse Junior High School, for districts served by Onondaga-Cortland-Madison and Oswego County BOCES.

Although Marcellus is a component of OCM BOCES, district residents might want to consider attending the Feb. 4 event, to avoid a conflict with the Marcellus Festival of the Bands event on Feb. 5. But they are welcome to participate in either forum.
The forum in Auburn will take place 6:30-8:30 p.m. Feb. 4. Auburn West Middle School is located at 217 Genesee St., in Auburn.

If a sufficient number of Marcellus residents sign up to attend the Feb. 4 forum, the district will make a school bus available to transport them to Auburn. Marcellus Central School District residents should call District Clerk Kim LaRose at 673-6210. Your RSVP will assist the event coordinators, as well as those organizing bus transportation and/or district follow-up advocacy efforts.

The intention of the event is to bring community members of all backgrounds together – parents, students, teachers, business leaders, elected officials and taxpayers – for an informative and inspiring evening that will let them know what is at stake if state leaders do not eradicate the Gap Elimination Adjustment, or GEA, and provide adequate, equitable and sustainable funding for schools.

The state is using the GEA to take money it would have allocated to school districts across the state and instead fill its own budget gap. In the past five school budgets, the state has used the GEA to take back from the Marcellus Central School District more than $7.8 million in state aid.

The goal of the events on Feb. 4 and 5 is to inform public school stakeholders about the state of the crisis and how it equates to lost opportunities for students and to catalyze grassroots advocacy as the 2014-15 state budget is hammered out in Albany. The forum’s featured speaker is Dr. Rick Timbs, executive director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium.

"The Board of Education and I are hopeful these events will allow more parents and community members to express their support for equitable funding for our public schools," Superintendent of Schools Dr. Craig Tice said. "While the annual Legislative Breakfasts of the past permitted Board of Education members to have small group conversations with their legislators, the organizers of these forums are trying to encourage as many community members as possible to attend in an effort to show their visible support for their local school district."