Next Fight Back Friday is June 10th

We began the idea of Fight Back Friday as a way to brand an action that many schools could easily plug into. We feel it builds from the ground up and allows each school to reach out to the local community with issues THAT school feels are important. These decentralized actions are important but the citywide branding and coordination from a central body is also important, along with culminating actions in the afternoon after school. Some schools have begun to reach out to their neighboring schools, thus growing small neighborhood cores. This Friday is the last one of this school year. There is still time to join in - even if it's just a small informational morning picket with a few teachers. We have tool kits for you to use. Email Julie Cavanaugh (juliereed15@hotmail.com) with any questions. Shee will send you the tool kit with all the fliers and stickers and such. We are happy to help you think through all the steps.
 
That's my spiel. Here is the official one.

Next Fight Back Friday is June 10th

From the FBF blog:

FBF gives every school community a chance to stand up and say NO to the cuts and lay-offs at whatever level the community can be organized.

• Everyone wears black (Wear black, take our schools back!).  It can be as simple as just that.
• We have stickers people can print out with messages about the cuts and the kinds of changes we would all like to see in education that folks can wear and give out. 
• We have fliers that you can adjust to fit your school, which you can use on the day of.
• Many schools have a picket outside of school either before or after the school day. We have fliers you can use to publicize the picket during the week leading up to the 20th.
• The fliers will be in at least English and Spanish, and if we can, Chinese.
• We have post cards that we are asking people to get signed that will then be delivered en-masse to city council members. You can print those out, or come get them at a couple of different locations.
• We ask everyone to take pictures to send in that then go on our fight back friday blog and face book page.

We will be putting out a press release and press statement and pushing the press to cover as many school events as we can. And the more schools participating the more coverage we will get.

Please, even if it sounds hard or overwhelming, consider pushing your school community to join in. Email Julie Cavanaugh (juliereed15@hotmail.com) with any questions. We will send you the tool kit with all the fliers and stickers and such. We are happy to help you think through all the steps.

This is a way for your whole community to work together, parents, students and staff, to build solidarity within and across schools. These actions are great for training ourselves to do the organizing that we need if we are to turn the tide of the destruction of public education. In order to fight for the transformations we all want to see in our education system, we need to do the grassroots educating, organizing and mobilizing that it takes to move whole communities.

Photographs from the May 20th Fight Back Friday

https://picasaweb.google.com/108122375451944539262/FightBackFriday52011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMCKyYvbr9GTpgE

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Though some of the schools below are not officially branded as a FBF school, all are holding some action this Friday.

Participating Schools

PS 261, Brooklyn

PS 321, Brooklyn

Sunset Park High School, Brooklyn

PS 306, Queens,

PS 69, Queens

PS 503, Brooklyn

PS 254, Brooklyn

Facing History School, Manhattan

International School for Liberal Arts

Lehman High School, Bronx

PS 368, Bronx

PS 230, Brooklyn

Paul Robeson High School, Brooklyn

PS 24, Brooklyn

MS 136, Brooklyn

PS 193, Brooklyn

Bushwick School for Social Justice

Academy for Urban Planning

John Dewey High School, Brooklyn

PS 157, Brooklyn

Green School, Brooklyn

PS 123, Manhattan

Frederick Douglass Academy 5, Bronx

El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice

PS 15, Brooklyn

East Brooklyn Community High School in Canarsie

PAIHS, Queens

Neighborhood School, Manhattan

Childrens' Workshop School, Manhattan

James Baldwin School, Manhattan

Humanitites Prep, Manhattan

Lyons High School, Brooklyn

FDR High School, Brooklyn

Goldstein High School, Brooklyn

Jamaica High School, Queens

Bronx International HS, Morris Campus

High School for Excellence, Morris Campus

Alfred E Smith High School, Bronx 

If your school is not taking part let me know your feelings why.