PCAPS announces new campaign to fight for school funding
by thenotebook on Sep 12 2013 Posted in Latest news
Photo: Isaac Riddle
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, speaking at the announcement of the Full Funding Fridays campaign, organized by the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools.
by Isaac Riddle
The Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools organized a press conference Thursday at City Hall to announce a new campaign that would call on City Council and other elected officials to fully fund District schools.
The campaign, called Full Funding Fridays, encourages parents, students and teachers to wear the “fund our schools” sticker or button every Friday in solidarity with the battle for school funding. Rallies will be held every Friday at different schools and other “symbolic” locations to call for more dollars for the city’s schools.
“We parents and community members are telling our elected officials that our children deserve more,” said Kia Hinton, the education committee co-chair at ACTION United.
In support of the campaign, Hinton also encouraged community members to change their profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter to the “fund our schools” logo.
“Our students deserve more. They deserve to not be subjected to overcrowded classrooms,” said Hinton. “They deserve to have enough desks so students aren’t sitting on the floor.”
And they deserve to have enough guidance counselors, participants said. Many schools now have fewer counselors due to budget cuts and some have no counselors.
Dennis Dorfman knows what is required of school counselors. Dorfman worked as a school counselor at AMY middle school in Northeast Philadelphia for 34 years.
