Important update on Regents exams, state budget, the cancellation of Zoom, and more!
Dear Friends,
1.First, some good news to report! The Board of Regents announced yesterday that the Regents exams due to take place this spring are cancelled. Today they put out guidance that any student who would have needed to pass any Regents exams to graduate in June can be issued a diploma without taking them. More details in this FAQ. Thanks to those of you who sent one of the 400 plus letters to the Regents and Commissioner about this; a Regents member mentioned receiving your letters at their meeting yesterday.
2.There also bad news. The state budget passed last week froze school spending at this year’s level, without raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy; given rising costs and salaries this will be experienced by many districts, including NYC, as cuts. The Governor was also given the authority to slash education spending further over the course of the year, depending on state revenue– though the Legislature will be able block his proposed cuts if they vote to do so within ten days.
If you’d like to see how your legislators voted on the budget, you can check out the Senate votes here and the Assembly here, where it was especially close. More on what this budget means for education compared to the outcomes that many advocates and parents had hoped for is outlined in this helpful chart from AQE .
We will all have to work hard to see that the city doesn’t follow the state’s lead by drastically cutting back on its own support for education. School services and especially class sizes have STILL not yet CONTINUE READING: Important update on Regents exams, state budget, the cancellation of Zoom, and more! | Class Size Matters