School District Budget Cuts: Cutting the Future: Followup #2

This is my last blog about the School District budget cuts, so I intend to end with more knowledge, and information on whats being done to stop this, how you can help, and to go out with a bang. So far, there have been many protests and rallies to save the education of Philadelphia students, some of them lead by students for the most part, other lead by adults in the community. For example, around May 16th, 2011, almost 200 students, parents and teachers rallied against the budget cuts, with signs saying such things as "I need my teachers!" and "I am the face of public schools!" (pictured below.) Over 600 students went to Harrisburg to protest the budget cuts, and many students from SLA talked to senators themselves, trying to show that as students, we do care, and we are willing to advocate for ourselves, for our education and for our future. Even now, there are still rallies being planned, although none so close to Harrisburg.

Besides attending or collaborating on rallies and protests, there is still more that you, as a person, can do. For one thing, you can donate money. SLA, for example, is taking huge hits from this budget cut, losing 430,000 dollars for the next school year. As a way of raising money so that we can afford to do these incredible things we do, (one to one laptops, family membership to the Franklin Institute, and maintaining the amazing teachers we have now,) we are attempting to amass 50,000 dollars through a donation website that you can go to right now, at slarocketfuel.blogspot.com, and donate to. 1 dollar, 10 dollars, 100 dollars. Every donation we receive is helping us to raise money for the next year, and if we can continue to operate well, maybe we'll be able to show Governor Corbett that we deserve the money to operate even better.

Spreading the word about these budget cuts and the many ways to help may even be the best thing you can do. The more people that understand the problem, and the more people that know how to help, the better. When people see what's wrong, they'll try to fix it, and there is power in numbers. That same power helps even more when everybody is doing their best to help counteract these cuts. If you hear about a rally, go to it, be an advocate for our education. Tell your friends, write a blog, post a status update, tweet a message. Do whatever you can do to inform the community of this problem. The more informed we all are, the better off we'll all be. Thank you for reading these blogs, and I hope you take what you've read here to heart, and do whatever is in your power to help todays students become tomorrow's educated leaders.