note: There is a major last minute campaign to derail New Roots school, a charter school open to all using a community-based equity & sustainabiity curriculum. Your letters of support sent TODAY, if you support the school, could be helpful. Elan
The day before the SUNY Board of Trustees meets to decide the future of New Roots School, the ICSD will be sending the public input gathered via their web site over the past month to the Charter Schools Institute. The deadline for registering your opinion is TODAY, Friday September 12, 2008. Please take a minute NOW to add your voice in support of New Roots, if that's your inclination! A simple, two-line message is all that you need. First, go to the ICSD web site: http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/ Then scroll down and click on "Input Welcome on New Roots Charter School." Your message could be as simple as: I strongly support New Roots Charter School, and urge the SUNY Board of Trustees to approve its charter as recommended by the Committee on Charter Schools. A line or two saying why would be even better, if you feel inspired! Read on for some inspiration. As reported in the Ithaca Journal yesterday, the SUNY Trustees Committee on Charter Schools were very enthusiastic about New Roots, citing an outstanding number of educational leaders on our board, our research-based program model demonstrated to improve academic performance and engagement for all students, and tremendous community support for developing the school. Here's the link to the story, just in case you missed it: http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008809100326 Also, please visit our web site, www.newrootsschool.org, where you will find some answers to frequently-asked questions, our proposed curriculum, and much more. Please use "contact us" if you have any questions, or would like to get involved. Thank you for taking just a few minutes to make a big difference. We'll be back in touch next Tuesday to let you know how things went! Thanks again, Friends of New Roots School ************************* THANKS FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN! It's relatively little effort on our part, but I realized today that the ICSD has been gathering emails from nearly a month now, and they plan to put the results of their campaign into the Trustees' laps just before the meeting next week. Several people are making a last-minute push today. It could potentially have an impact if we don't create some balance. WE CAN'T AFFORD TO BE COMPLACENT! Sorry to be shouting (!), but I'm concerned that people are people, and this may get someone's attention if there isn't balance, and although those concerned have been making a concerted effort to get people to give input, we haven't. Nothing like a deadline to motivate people, though! Please check in with the group to let everyone know what lists you've posted to. I hope/assume you can just use what I wrote, or easily modify it. It really could literally take people just two minutes to do this. . . Thanks so much, Tina -- Elan Shapiro Sustainable Tompkins Community Partnership Coordinator Sustainable Living Associates, Principal Frog's Way B&B 211 Rachel Carson Way Ithaca, NY 14850 607-275-0249 607-592-8402 Cell "We must be the change we want to see in the world" Mohandas Gandhi _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
