Parents: Curb Nyack School Cuts

A group of parents in Nyack are angry about to school budgets, and have banded together in hopes of having their concerns heard.

The group held its third meeting Wednesday night at to discuss possible plans of action—including a petition asking Governor Andrew Cuomo and local officials to not dispose of the tax to the top three percent of income earners in the state like planned. With the money that would come in from that, the group wants at least some of it put back to make up for the $1.3 billion public education funds lost statewide, including $1.4 million in Nyack.

“It just doesn’t make sense to protect the wealthy but not the children,” said Daniel Rostan, who started the group and has twin 8-year-old boys at Liberty Elementary School.

Rostan first got involved with the discussion after going to a school board meeting back in April, the first time he’s ever gone to a school board meeting. He was upset with the cuts and started talking to other parents about it. As some parents heard what he was saying, they would tell others to get in touch with him, and eventually Rostan had an email list of around 50 people. They decided to hold a meeting on Oct. 6 at the library and Donna Ramundo, president of the Nyack Teachers Association, brought along members of the Alliance for Quality Education, a New York state community-based organization that fights for better public education made up of parents, activists, schools and others.

Chad Radock, deputy campaign manager with AQE, was at the meeting Wednesday night, as was Lekia Hill, the Westchester and Rockland community organizer. AQE is helping out various groups like the one in Nyack around the state as part of their School Cuts Hurt campaign. They listened to the concerns of the group, made suggestions and discussed the best methods of getting their voices heard by elected officials.

“We’ve found that leaflets can go a long way,” Radock said. “In addition to the petition, if you have something to give out that talks in a bit more detail about your concerns, about what has been cut from your schools already, that can really make it hit home for people.”

The petition says that with cuts, Nyack lost 30 teaching positions, many to teaching aides, and up to 90 percent funding cuts to some programs. Dan Gottfried, of Nyack, said special education classes took the biggest hit losing teacher aides, as did younger classes.

“The students with the most needs got hit the hardest,” he said.

One big concern if more teacher positions have to be cut that many brought up was increasing class sizes, and thus more students per each teacher. Gottfried said one of his sons in Nyack High School asked a teacher to write a college letter of recommendation, and the teacher replied that he couldn’t because he already had too many to do.

“It’s not these big cuts that are going to happen right now,” he said. “It’s going to be a little thing, like a few more students per teacher every year, that keep building and building.”

Many at the meeting agreed that so far Nyack hasn’t been hit too bad by cuts to the school district. The group isn’t focused only on past cuts, but is also nervous for what they feel will be even more cuts coming up, according to Jen Marraccino, a member of the group. They’re not sure what specific cuts could be coming up, they are hoping they don’t have to find out.

Marraccino added that the group has had trouble getting people to meetings so far, which could be for a variety of reasons, and so the biggest issue discussed at the meeting was how to get the word out. The group agreed that it might be helpful to go out of Nyack to get signatures for the petition and to spread their message, as Nyack isn’t the only school district facing cuts. And since AQE is working with others around the state, it was discussed whether they could have a statewide day where groups from all over New York hand in their petitions to the governor’s office and their own elected state officials.

“If we all turn in our petitions on day, then maybe instead of just 1,000 signatures from people in Nyack, maybe it’s 10,000 or 20,000 signatures from people all over the state,” Marraccino said. “That’s something that’ll make more of an impact.”

They're also hoping to meet with the superintendent, state officials and others.

The group doesn’t have another meeting planned yet, but anyone interested in attending a meeting or learning more about the group is asked to email Dan Rostan at drostan@optonline.net.