Advocating in Albany and in Washington

Since my last message, we have been extremely busy. In response to the governor’s budget proposal, NYS PTA responded on our own and in some situations in partnership with the Educational Conference Board with the following:

• NYS PTA’s Testimony before the New York State Joint Legislative Committee Hearings 
• REPORT: Comprehensive State Action Needed to Support Schools from the NYS Educational Conference Board
• Published and shared our Issues Briefs and Talking Points on (please continue to click on these links from our TAKE ACTION page to still send your messages): 
• Funding Our Schools
• Family and Community Engagement
• Early Childhood Education
• Heroin and Prescription Opiates

Legislation/Education Conference and Lobby Days: We joined with our members from NYS PTA at our Legislation/Education Conference in Albany where we continued the conversation on the above topics and heard from specialists in the field who are dealing with these issues on a day-to-day basis.



Check out our YouTube page to see video of NYS Regent Judith Johnson talk about Regent Priorities.

You can also check out a great video presentation from the EPIC Theatre Ensemble Student Performers (in collaboration with the Campaign for Educational Equity).

Guided by Epic artists mentors, and researchers from the Campaign for Educational Equity (Teachers Colleges, Columbia University), this student theatre ensemble presented: 10467 - "Why do we stand down when we should stand up in the battle against educational injustice? And how do we conceive and construct a new value system where someone's zip code doesn't damage their educational opportunities?"

The day after, we brought 18 advocates to meet with NYS Senate and Assembly representatives and staffs to share our opinions and ask for their support with the above issues. Our member advocates throughout the state joined our ranks to share their views on virtual lobby day where close to 4,000 letters were sent to our legislators about funding our schools. (You can still send your messages from our TAKE ACTION page.)

One of our delegates from the Western Region, Candy Ditkowski, shared her thoughts about the experience in her blog post, "Party of Five". You can check it out by clicking here.

Advocating for Statewide Family Engagement Centers in Washington: We then took our advocates to Washington, DC where we had the opportunity to attend many workshops to prepare us for our Hill visits on Thursday.

We had the opportunity to meet with representatives from Senator Chuck Shumer, Senator Gillibrand, Representative Katko, Representative Israel, Representative Tonko, Representative King and Representative Rice’s offices.

We met with them to ask for them to sign onto a letter of support to fund the Statewide Family Engagement Centers that are within the new ESSA legislation. We had very productive conversations and embraced the opportunity to share our views with our federal legislators. Those we met with were very open to supporting this important legislation. If you follow @NYSPTA on Twitter, you can see some direct and re-tweeted quotes and pictures from the visits and from throughout the week.

Thank you for continuing to Communicate to Advocate with us for the children of NYS!

-Bonnie

NYS PTA® President

Communicate to Advocate!

everychild.onevoice.®

president@nyspta.org