Parent petition power

Michael Hirsch Parent leader Ocynthia Williams from the Coalition for Educational Justice speaks to the press, with cascading petitions as backdrop.

Continuing their battle to stop the mayor from laying off teachers and cutting child care and after-school program funding, a group of parents and community members gathered at City Hall on June 16 to deliver a petition on seven 50-foot scrolls signed by more than 20,000 New Yorkers telling Mayor Bloomberg and City Council members to invest in school improvement, not cut programs or personnel. UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who supported the petition drive, called on the mayor to “stop playing political games,” and warned that if he went ahead with the cuts and layoffs, “the communities and this union will not sit idly by.” The sponsors of the petition were the Alliance for Quality Education, the Coalition for Educational Justice and New York Communities for Change.