Save Our Schools Feeder to March on Washington

By Guest Contributor, on August 22nd, 2013

March with Save Our Schools Contingent as we join in the 50th Anniversary March for Civil Rights in DC August 24th Public Education is a Civil Right! Save Our Schools calls all supporters of Public Education join with the 50th Anniversary March for Civil Rights: A Continuation of the Battle for Jobs, Justice and Freedom! http://nationalactionnetwork.net/mow/ Meet at Farragut Square 8:00 AM Look for the Save Our Schools banner, pick up your signs and march together to the Rally Site at 8:30 Make your voice heard for jobs, justice, & freedom! Why we are Marching Public Education is a civil right! No school closings! End high stakes testing! Kids over profits-End Privatization!!! Also, join the Journey for Justice Education as a Human Rights Marches, Boycotts, and Rallies in your home city on August 28th and August 29th. Look for further details on all of these events at the SOS website and in future email updates. Join the movement to Save Our Schools! Together we can change the conversation. We can preserve and transform public education for all the children! Our mission is to build a national grassroots, people-powered movement, which preserves and transforms public education, as the cornerstone of a democratic society.

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Mayor To Meet With School Closing Opponents After Threat Of Home Demonstration

By Guest Contributor, on December 14th, 2012

Cross-Posted from DC’s Independent Media Center By Luke

On the 13th of December, a “Save Our Schools” rally was held at Malcolm X Elementary School in Anacostia, targeted by Mayor Gray to be closed along with 19 other schools in DC. The event was organized by Ward 8 State Board of Education Representative Trayon White.

Originally the parents, teachers, students and others were going to march on Mayor Gray’s home a couple miles away-but he agreed to meet with them when he got word that he was in for an evening of “pitchforks and torches” protesting outside his home. We shall see if the Mayor follows through on his commitment to meet with these folks.

Parents and students of Malcolm X Elementary School at Save Our Schools Rally.

The Mayor has been ducking a meeting with homeless advocates for months, with his schedulers saying it would be three months before he can get around to meeting with SHARC. Perhaps the only way to get a meeting with Mayor Gray is to plan a march on his home in a middle class section of Anacostia and make sure he knows you’re coming?

Background on the issue:

The school closings are one of the “suggestions” from the Walton Foundation, the Wal-Mart funded outfit Mayor Gray’s government is accepting funds and school “reform” advice from. The Walton Family Foundation page on the “DC Public Education Fund” gives glowing reviews among other things to the IMPACT testing program used to fire so many DC teachers.

The DC Public Education fund homepage lists in their “what’s new” section “Proposed Consolidations and Reorganization of Schools,” meaning closing schools like Malcolm X Elementary. Since they receive funding from the Walton Foundation, in effect we have Wal-Mart paying DC to close down public schools in favor of charter schools like the notorious and fascistic KIPP, or even a charter school that is designed to teach people specifically to work at Wal-Mart.

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Save Our Schools Rally & March!

By Liane Scott, on December 11th, 2012

As DC public school advocates predicted, the school closings of 2008 didn’t improve test scores or student achievement and have negatively impacted community after community throughout the city. So here we are at the end of 2012, poised to take another dive off the school closings precipice, this time at the behest of Mayor Gray and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. I’m betting that you have had enough. I know I have. No one who cares about children wants to hear any more stories like the one Empower DC member Marybeth Tinker recorded in the video below. In it two young students from Thurgood Marshall Elementary tell us why the proposal to close their school is just plain WRONG!

No one who cares about DC’s children and DC’s communities wants to hear any more stories like the one you’ll hear in the podcast below produced by La Palabra. Break It Down: School Closures in Washington DC

Michelle Powell walks her granddaughter to Ferebee-Hope Elementary every day. Her family has already dealt with 3 school closures in Ward 8 and is now faced with a fourth school being closed (Ferebee-Hope). Listen to Mrs. Powell’s story and understand why school closures hurt our communities and our children.

To hear her story, follow this link – http://lapalabradc.tumblr.com/post/37667510236/break-it-down-school-closures-in-washington

Which is why you’ve decided to join the fight to stop school closings in the District of Columbia. You’ve been looking for a chance to take a stand. Here it is:

JOIN DC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS, STUDENTS AND TEACHERS FROM WARD 8 @ THE SAVE OUR SCHOOLS RALLY & MARCH Thursday, December 13, 2012 – 4:30 PM RALLY at Malcolm X Elementary School 1351 Alabama Avenue SE (Near Congress Heights Metro on the Green Line) then MARCH to the home of MAYOR VINCENT GRAY Branch Avenue SE

Ward 8’s Malcolm X Elementary, Ferebee Hope Elementary, MC Terrell Elementary and Johnson Middle School are all on the list of schools to be closed. Your school may not be on the list this year, but it might be next. It’s time to take a STAND! For more information, contact Trayon White, Ward 8 Representative to the State Board of Education at 202-316-7593.

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