3/21/2014

Families, teachers protest school funding levels

Families, teachers protest school funding levels

More than 125 demonstrators rally against Senate budget resolution on education
41 MINUTES AGO

GLENS FALLS -- Henry Gelber, a second-year percussion student at Miverva Central School, has enjoyed the challenge of mastering the tympani part on Regency Fanfare by Michael Story. But the fifth-grader worries that school budget cuts will force cancelation of band. Im going to middle school, and Im hoping we dont have to have any more cuts, said Henry, who participated with his mother and younger brother in an education funding demonstration on Friday afternoon outside the Glens Falls office of state Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury. New York State United Teachers, a labor union, organized the demonstration to protest the Senate budget resolution, which Little voted for and which the union says does not adequately fund schools. This budget theyre putting out there, were calling it The Bad News Budget, said Lee Cutler, the unions secretary/treasurer. The union said the budget provides $161 million less for schools than the state Assembly version, and would make the state 2 percent property tax cap permanent. The union also said the Senate budget provides funding for private charter schools, largely in the New York City area funding that should be going to public schools. The parents downstate, their schools are awful, so they want a choice, said Sharon Farrell, a Hudson Falls teacher. But that choice is hurting the taxpayers. More than 125 demonstrators marched on the sidewalk in front of Littles office on Warren Street and chanted I say GEA. You say, Go Away, a reference to the so-called gap elimination adjustment, an allotment that has been deducted from each school districts aid since the 2009-10 school year to make up for a state revenue shortfall. NYSUT wants the GEA eliminated entirely. Little, in a telephone interview, said it would take $1.1 billion to eliminate the adjustment this year.
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3/21/2014

Families, teachers protest school funding levels

Every superintendent that Ive met with and talked with, its the GEA that theyd like to see eliminated, she said. Little said she would like to see the GEA eliminated this year, or in increments this year and next. Ive stood up in conference and said, We have to eliminate the GEA, she said. Little said the Senate budget resolution is not a final bill. Its part of the process as we move toward the conference committees and we work together, she said. Little said the Senate resolution appropriates more funding for elimination of the GEA than the governors budget proposal or the Assembly budget proposal. Little said she respects NYSUTs right to demonstrate. I think theyre really concerned and frustrated. Believe me, I have moments when I am too, she said. Michele Bushey, a teacher at Saranac Central School, said the demonstration brought out a cross-section of people from around the region. This is not just educators here, she said. Its parents and community members.

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