Wednesday, February 8, 2012

A Night of Town Halls and PEP Prepping

UPDATED WITH VIDEO OF JANINE SOPP EXPLAINING THE PEOPLE'S MIC



http://youtu.be/rbDdfAEnJ34



Students from Southside (Los Sures)
I hit 2 Town Halls tonight --- spending most of my time in my old district 14 at MS 50 where a wonderful event was held to support PS 19 (on the closing list) at the PEP Thursday night --- they were signing people up for the buses. And they are telling people not to walk out of the PEP (as the UFT may do). I've got some good video --- with strong speeches with an anti- Moskowitz flavor. The Latino/a community points out how all of the Success ads for a school on the Southside are appearing on the white Northside. Pedro Noguera was just in time to leave the SUNY charter board efore the flood. This battle is about to enter a new phase that Eva hasn't seen before.

The community is joined by a number of white parents who also oppose Eva and support the public schools. They have already set up a fabulous web site (Occupy The DOE (under construction)
and had loads of info available on charters from our film and Truth About Charter brochure. One parent made a hundred copies of our film with labels on them and was giving it out.

My childhood pal Marty Needelman, a Southside resident for over 40 years was at the meeting. Marty got me into this mess in 1970 when he was a community organizer/lawyer. I've seen him 5 times over the last month when there are years we don't see each other.

Marty Needelman
This is a petition to stop Success Charter from going into MS 50 in Williamsburg.  Please sign and share:

Then I scooted over to East NY by scooting down Bushwick Ave to Pennsylvania Ave (3 blocks from Alabama Ave where Marty and I grew up) in pretty quick time and caught the end of the District 19 event --- actually I think it may have been a Community Board Education Committee meeting. I saw lots of good people from the Coalition for Public Education (CPE) there to promote their concept of the People's Board of Education. Charles Baron was the key speaker and I was told he made a great speech but I got there too late.

Check out this video from Legacy HS on the closing list:
http://youtu.be/0mYoMIWTRkk
Save Legacy AndOtherschools11:53pm Feb 7

Here are some pics from the night:
Jamillah (CPE, Benita (The Many)

Akinlabi (CPE) and Lisa (GEM/ICE)

Baron

GEM's Janine Sopp made a rousing speech in D. 14


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