Monday, May 10, 2010

A sample letter as to what your letter to the County Commissioners might look like.

A neighbor copied me on her letter to the County Commissioners. I thought I'd pass it on.

County Commissioners :



I am writing to ask that you help take care of our Durham County schools. With the recent budget crisis, I know you have many hard decisions to make. As a property owner, I am willing to pay more in taxes to support the schools. The children of Durham are our future. We need to make this very important investment in them and their education.



Please do whatever you need to do to help support the Durham County schools.



Gratefully yours,

My call to action--

Here's a letter I've sent to any and everyone I can think of... If you want to send it out at your schools, be my guest:

Friends and Neighbors,

Many of you know how much our family has loved our experience with EK Powe and the Durham Public Schools this year. Our son Lars has grown so much; he is reading and doing math, but our biggest pleasure has been our unexpected discovery of the greater DPS community. What a treasure we have with our Bull City Schools!

Unfortunately, due to economic circumstances out of the control of Durham's elected officials, (hello Recession?), the DPS budget is facing draconian cutbacks not only THIS year, potentially laying off over 237 teachers and increasing class size by over three students, but due to the end of Federal Stimulus dollars, the 2011-2012 budget looks even worse-- no local dollars for increasing much needed after school or preschool programs; no local dollars for staff development to implement new programs to increase reading proficiency-- no local dollars for providing new supplies to teachers to implement cutting edge teaching practices-- no local dollars for much needed improvements to school buildings and school grounds. Only the Federal Stimulus dollars kept DPS afloat this year, and the year after next they will be running out. (NC already ranks 11th out of 12 southeastern states in per pupil spending.)

Fortunately, there is a solution to the problem. Last week, the School Board courageously passed a budget that cuts 60 central office staff, athletic supplements, reducing grounds keeping services, and many other services, but attempts to maintain 237 classroom teachers. Our elected officials even REDUCED their own very limited stipend by $300 dollars. Everyone in DPS understands the need to make sacrifices and change the way they do business. This is where we need, you, Durham's voters, to take action: If this $16 million dollars was raised without cutting other county programs but solely through a tax increase, it would mean approximately a .05 cent tax increase for schools to County property owners. This would mean an extra $100 a year on a $200,000 house. $100 dollars a year or the cost of two sausage biscuits a week from Bojangles...mmmm... seems a very small price to pay for continuing the investment we have in our children.

I'm asking all of you to write, call, email and talk to your County Commissioners and let them know that you want them to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to maintain our schools. Durham has a rich tradition of supporting our schools. Now, we are heading in new directions in Durham, let you Commissioners know that they need to keep us headed in the right direction.

Thanks for your support,

Michael Oehler, 1300 Alabama Ave
www.supportdurhamschools.blogspot.com


County Commissioners:
Michael Page, chair, mpage@durhamcountync.gov
Brenda Howerton, bhowertown@durhamcountync.gov
Becky Heron, bmheron@durhamcountync.gov
Joe Bowser, jbowser2@nc.rr.com
Ellen Reckhow, vice chair, ereckhow@gmail.com

My message to the school board last Thursday night.

People have asked me what my message was to the School Board last Thursday. Well here it is...

My name is Michael Oehler, and I have a son in Kindergarten at EK Powe, and a daughter who will be at Powe next year. I was a teacher for 8 years, hold a MT degree, and for the past 6 years have been the primary caregiver of my two children. I have a blog: supportdurhamschools.blogspot.com that I started to gain support around the idea of a tax increase to support our schools.

First, I'd like to thank you all, the school board, for the time you devote to Durham's children. My grandfather Sassaman was a School Board member in Hummelstown PA, and I'll never forget the stories he told me of parents showing up at all hours of the night demanding a teacher be fired for some reason or another. I never really imagined myself as one of those parents, but stranger things have happened. Anyway, I know he never looked back on his time on the SB negativiley, but he focused on the positive. Thanks again.


I don't have any magic potion that will generate $20million, but I do have a few ideas:

It seems as though a perception exists that DPS is a top heavy organization. Although 60 positions have already been eliminated from Central Office , when I examined the budget, I wanted to find a way to increase the HOPE of the community and create a feeling a shared sacrifice as well as address this perception of DPS as a "top heavy" organization.

My idea first idea is to relocate all offices in the Fuller building to empty classrooms in school buildings across the district. Imagine Human Resources or Elementary Curriculum and Instruction sharing the basement of EK Powe, right next to the backpack food program storage closet. How would anyone have the gall to talk about those administrators at Central Office not understanding what it is like in the trenches when they, too, had to fight for parking spots, smell the cafeteria food cooking, or have their meetings interrupted with fire drills or water leaking down the walls when it rains. Imagine the synergy created between HR and Maintenance when Dr. Becoats was coming for a meeting and the floor was wet because a toilet leaked?

Next, I'd also like to see a line by line itemization of the cost of ALL of our testing programs. From benchmark's to EOG's. While I support testing and accountability, we need to spend money on programs that have a greater return than an assessment. It is NOT the TEST that teaches, but the teacher, and when facing such a severe fiscal crisis, I believe that knowing the true cost of the tests is crucial-- I can't imagine that my Kindergarten son needs to be given a standardized test every four weeks--although apparently Judge Manning does.


Finally, I believe that enough dollars could be shifted from the TEST heavy focus of our schools to spending money on programs that have proven returns like successful magnet programs like the one at RN Harris, AVID, Saturday Academy, and teacher mentoring. These are proven small programs with big

As someone who has always believed in the power of public education in America, I can see the pressure the schools are under all across the nation. However, I know that you all will not take the easy way out, but make a courageous choice to fully fund our schools.

Thank you.