Dear Colleagues:

Public Education in California and across the country is at a critical juncture.  In state after state, schools and teachers are being asked to slash programs and take cuts in salaries while reaching and exceeding goals set by the same politicians who decided that it was easier to cut school funding and handicap students than to find solutions to their states’ budget crises.

Now, we are hearing that California’s budget problems are going to get even worse.  California’s schools get only about 40% of the state budget, but are being forced to make up almost 60% of the state’s budget shortfall.  

The only way for concerned educators to fight back is to be informed and organized.  Unless we stand together in Corona-Norco and across the state, we can expect politicians to keep coming back to schools for even more money, regardless of what it does to our students and our families. California, which is already 49^th in funding levels among the states, will have the largest classes, the fewest counselors and nurses per capita, and our kids will continue to suffer because of decimated arts and enrichment programs.

That is why we have asked CTA’s organizer for our region of California to help us begin the process of standing up for public schools here in Corona-Norco and in California.  Steve Pulkkinen will be with us at the CNTA Training Center (office at 1189 Mountain Ave) on Saturday, November 14 from 10 AM to 1 PM to help us get started talking with and to our members and community about what public education means to us and what we can do to protect it. The first step in standing up for public schools is to learn what our members are saying and thinking.

Please come and learn how you can make a difference in this crisis and make sure that our members’ voices are heard and respected.   This is a training session and should be not only informative but also motivating.  Instead of waiting for something bad to happen, we can get ahead of the problem and begin working together not only here in CNUSD but across California to demand that public education be adequately funded and that educators be valued.

Please join me and other concerned educators on Saturday, November 14 here at the CNTA training room.  And please bring some of your colleagues.  We need every school represented so that we can listen to and include every member in our effort to protect our schools, our students, and our families.

In Unity,

Bill Fisher
President, CNTA