Our public schools and colleges belong to all of us: the students who learn in them, the parents who support them, the educators and staff who work in them and the communities that they anchor. No longer will we allow ourselves to be divided. Corporate-style reforms that disregard our voices, and attempt to impose a system of winners and losers, must end. None of our students deserve to be collateral damage.

In mid-February the national Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) is working with over 30 local communities across the country to organize actions at over 800 schools in support of the public schools and colleges our students deserve. NYSUT, AQE, and Citizen Action of New York are all part of AROS and are planning local events for March 3^rd as the second wave in these national days of action.

Our Agenda

Right now we are focused on issues that will be decided by the Governor and the state Legislature in the state budget in March. We are calling for:

• Fair and adequate school funding through a school aid increase of $2.9 billion with a priority on ending the inequality in our New York State schools. It has now been a decade since the final Campaign for Fiscal Equity court decision and our schools are owed $4.8 billion to fulfill every child’s right under the NYS Constitution to a “sound basic education.”
• Affordable and quality public higher education through a $717 million increase in state funding for SUNY, CUNY, and community colleges including providing a real maintenance of effort for our four-year campuses and increasing funding for Tuition Assistance Program, opportunity programs and enacting the Dream Act.
• Modify the undemocratic tax cap to ensure New York State’s school and students can be adequately supported.
• An end to receivership which is yet another top down and damaging intervention that is being imposed upon our communities, not with our communities. Instead we demand adequately funded, high-quality community schools that are redesigned with full engagement of parents, teachers and other school staff, administrators and our communities.
• Full-day pre-K for all four year olds. In 2011, the state promised full-day pre-K to all four year olds, yet 90,000 four year olds are still waiting for full-day pre-K. 

We will be marching from School 9 (485 Clinton Ave.) to the Downtown Damon Campus of Monroe Community College (228 E. Main)

Rally will take place inside!

Gather at 5pm at School 9 for the march; Rally begins at 5:40pm at MCC

Download the Flyer HERE!