Seattle teachers protest against budget cuts ? deniselouieblog

Seattle school district has cut some $80 million out of its budget over the past three years. An additional $20 million or more is expected this year. That?s why 47-year-old special-education teacher Chris Barrett stood in the rain on the corner of Southwest Fauntleroy and Alaska Way Southwest in West Seattle last Tuesday afternoon with his sons and 30 other protesters, pleading for more money for education. Budget cuts led Seattle Public Schools to cancel half of the school day. ?The state needs to fund education just like the courts say they do,? said Barrett, referencing a Washington Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that the Legislature is not fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide an adequate education for all. (Please read more in our article from January 8th).

The West Seattle event was just one of six protests across the city organized by the Seattle teachers union to rally support for more education funding. Their goal: to show that the cuts the Legislature has already made have hurt. ?It?s a bigger deal than just school being out today,? parent Michelle Pearson said. ?It?s about our future.?

Read more in the Seattle Times article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017324025_furloughprotest25m.html.

This cut to education is not a shock to early childhood education. Denise Louie Education Center has had major changes over the past year to our federal and state funding. With the potential discussion of cuts in the Working Connections Childcare vouchers, DLEC had to make the difficult decision to close a FD/FY classroom in the 2011-2012 school year. We have reduced our Head Start enrollment by one classroom while maintaining the same level of Head Start funding so that we may continue to deliver more quality education and family service support in the face of flat funding. In addition, we eliminated 2/3 of our transportation, forcing families to self-transport their children to school. We have increased the number of City of Seattle funded Step Ahead preschool slots and have added additional part-day private pay slots. We are very conservative in budgeting unknown revenue sources (e.g., from fundraising and child care). Even with these significant cuts, we anticipate to end 2012 with a budget deficit of $144,392. While these have been difficult decisions to make, at the core is maintaining high quality services to children and families and maximizing every dollar

On the brighter side, the Families and Education Levy was passed by Seattle voters. The Levy currently provides DLEC $153,000 to support 20 children in the Step Ahead preschool program. The anticipation with the passed Levy is that it will provide additional revenue to continue quality services to our community. DLEC has already or plans to apply to multiple Early Learning Investments including Parent-Child Home Program and more Steps Ahead slots.

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Source: http://deniselouieblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/seattle-teachers-protest-against-budget-cuts/

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