Elyse Dashew and Sandra Conway have organized a letter-writing and petition effort to encourage full funding of CMS’s budget. Their efforts have drawn some media coverage.
Below is the text of a Michelle Boudin report that ran on NBC6 on Monday. (The video has been removed from the WCNC site.)
Conway is distributing this Word file of proposed text for people to sign and mail to commissioners and legislators.
Conway discussed the material with Forum co-founder Sarah Stevenson after the May 13 Forum.
Grassroots group schools leaders on education
By MICHELLE BOUDIN / NBC Charlotte | Posted on May 12, 2014
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Some Charlotte parents have formed a grassroots effort to make sure county commissioners and state legislators know funding education and teacher pay needs to be a top priority.
They call themselves Public School Friends.
They are moms on a mission.
Elyse Dashew is one of the founders.
“My kids are in public schools, and I’m seeing how this is affecting them. Some of their best teachers have one foot out the door. Some of my dear friends are teachers who have quit.”
Public School Friends is a grassroots organization to help the Charlotte community voice their concerns on funding for education.
Sandra Conway is working with Dashew getting their message out.
“Personally just hurts my heart because I come from a family of educators; my dad was a professor, my sister teaches, and I’ve had such pride in this state for so long and we just need to kind of turn this around,” Conway said.
“It’s a matter of getting as many people as possible the chance to raise their voice on this issue,” Dashew says of their efforts.
Conway added, “94-percent of people agree this is a top priority. Well how do we voice that? How do we make sure our elected officials hear that? So all we’re doing is saying here are the tools to engage, easy ways to raise your hands and say I support public education.”
Their tools: a newly launched petition, a brand new Facebook page and a letter writing campaign.
“We’re 48th in per pupil spending, 46th in teacher pay and falling, and so it was just the point where we all need to stand up– not just the parents, not just the teachers, but the whole community has to stand up and say something’s gotta change,” Conway says.
Elyse has two kids in CMS, Sandra has a Junior at Myers Park and two recent graduates. But they say even people with no kids in the system have joined their fight.
You can check out their petition here.
You can check out their Facebook page here.