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Around the UFT
Protest at Leon Goldstein HS:
‘Stop the cuts’
published November 10, 2011
MILLER PHOTOGRAPHY
City Comptroller John Liu speaks to protesters.
MILLER PHOTOGRAPHY Chapter Leader Kit Wainer, UFT Brooklyn Borough Representative Howard Schoor and Principal Joseph Zaza.
MILLER PHOTOGRAPHY Tenth-grader Simona Maksinyan makes an artistic statement.
Chanting “Stop the cuts” and carrying signs that read “These cuts don’t heal” and “No budget cuts,” more than 125 parents, teachers and students rallied against budget cuts to education outside Leon Goldstein HS, in the Manhattan Beach section of south Brooklyn, before school on Oct. 24.
UFT Chapter Leader Kit Wainer described the deteriorating conditions at the school that led the School Leadership Team — including parents, teachers and students — to call the rally. Its funding slashed, Goldstein doesn’t have as many class offerings, including advanced placement classes, as it did in the past, and the only extracurricular activities now available are those supported through parent fundraising, he said.
Indeed, the school in the relatively affluent Brooklyn neighborhood is so broke, Wainer said, it could hardly afford basic supplies like copy paper.
“The mayor’s cuts are destroying schools, and the kids are not getting anything in exchange,” said Wainer, a veteran social studies teacher. “Their futures are being cut. That’s why they’re out and protesting. The fact is they’re destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of kids in this city.”
The chapter leader said he was pleased with the turnout. Since there are only 65 UFT members at the school, he noted, the rally’s size indicated significant support for its anti-austerity message in the surrounding community.
“It took a lot of patient organizing behind the scenes, but it’s starting to pay off in our alliance with parents,” he said. “The students are starting to organize, too.”
Goldstein Principal Joseph Zaza, UFT Brooklyn Borough Representative Howard Schoor and New York City Comptroller John Liu also attended the rally.
Read more: Around the UFT
Related topics: political action, budget, school-based activism
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