Saturday, March 28, 2009

Meeting with the Mayor

Hey everyone,

Last Friday, Emily and I, along with other members of the coalition, met with the mayor (and the superintendent, his education advisor, a couple of other people) to ask him to commit a specific percentage of revenue from new local options taxes to Boston Public Schools.  He refused to do so, saying he won't commit to something until he knows how much money will be coming into the city from the local options taxes.  On a more positive note, Abi, from BSAC, asked him if he would consider allowing a student to serve as a full, voting member on the School Committee and he said he would absolutely be in favor of it and that he'll have his lawyers look into the legality of having a student vote.  (Most School Committee members serve 4-year terms, but that might not work for a student; they also weren't sure if a student would be legally allowed to vote, etc.  We should hold him to that.)

In addition, we talked to Jennifer, his liaison to the state government, and she said she would help us set up meetings with the Boston delegation of the Legislature, which is awesome.  If I missed anything, Emily, please add on.  

Oh, P.S., he signed the petition, so now we've got both him and the superintendent on our petition.  

1 comment:

  1. He also was trying to persuade us to push our teachers to accept a wage freeze--not the topic of our presentation with him, but he seemed to think we were putting our efforts in the wrong place, since this would produce the most immediate results.

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