RMMS Teacher Speaks at Educate New York Rally
On Thursday, February 17th, Educate New York held at Sachem East High School the first of many rallies that will be held across the state. One of our own, Robert Moses Middle School Science teacher Ken Luna, was among the speakers. Below is a reprint of his speech. We ask you to take action and support our public schools by contacting your local Senators and Assemblymen and asking them to restore the proposed cuts to our school aid. Their contact information is:
Senator Owen Johnson
ojohnson@senator.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Andrew Raia
raiaa@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman James Conte
contej@assembly.state.ny.us
Assemblyman Robert Sweeney
Sweeney@assembly.state.ny.us
Mr. Luna's Speech
Good evening. My name is Ken Luna and I’m here tonight as a parent, educator, community member and product of our public schools, along with my wife, son and colleagues, to urge Governor Cuomo to save public education by restoring funding.
Between loss of federal funds and his proposed state budget we could be losing up to 10.4 million dollars over this year’s budget in North Babylon.
And what effect would this have on our kids?
Last year we lost approximately 12 staff positions due to budget cuts. This year we could lose up to 60 more, leading to larger class sizes and reduced services for our kids and their families.
We’ve already reduced clubs, library, music and art for our kids, and this budget forces us to possibly cut them even further.
We are ranked one of the Top 100 Music communities in the entire nation, and we might have to slash the programs.
We could also be forced to cut the number of students able to attend Wilson Tech, a vital vocational program for kids who might not be college-bound.
And we’ve worked incredibly hard to build a science research program and we are looking for Intel participants--and yet this, too, might also be in jeopardy because of this budget proposal.
Governor Cuomo, I implore you to restore funding to public education so that children like my son can have access to the same quality education that I had growing up. I believe the future of our state depends on it.