Concerned citizens plan a protest at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday (April 29) at the School District of Lee County headquarters on Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers, responding to systemwide cuts in staff and programs.
India Palencia is running for the school board as an at-large candidate. She is taking the lead in organizing the protest and explained why.
"So we have a lot of groups that have formed across Lee County, and they're having issues at their local school where their kids are going. And many of them have tried going to the school board meetings, tried reaching out to the superintendent and her staff, but they don't, they feel like they're not being heard.
"So we feel the next step is to make sure that the community is aware of what's happening down at our school district."
What’s happening is that school principals have been wrangling with their budgets and cutting programs and staff due to the district’s reported $46.7 million budget shortfall for next fiscal year.
"When I watched the school board workshop they gave many reasons as to why that's happening, and they weren't very clear on exactly how they to approach the shortfall and where they would be making cuts," Palencia said.
"Shortly thereafter, I started hearing from teachers that they were making massive cuts at their schools and not just to staff. We started hearing from folks like over at Edison Park where they were cutting the funding for the arts programs. At Colonial Elementary, they've told the guidance counselor, Well, you're going down to one day a week for an entire school of kids. And simultaneously, we see at the district level that they're creating new administrative positions, and they’re six-figure salary positions."
Joining Palencia in the demonstration are members of the Lee County chapter of the National Organization for Women. Nancy Terreri is its president.
"The National Organization for Women is not just for women, but it's for children.
And we're very concerned that this, our school board and superintendent, the focus is really not on putting children first.
"That the cuts that they're talking about and their pattern of spending over the last few years really doesn't indicate a system in Lee County that's putting children first."
Terreri outlined her specific concerns.
"We’re the lowest in the country of average teacher salaries.
"My understanding is that they use teachers who are not qualified for their subjects.
"We're in the bottom half of the country for the amount of money being spent per student per year.
"It seems, and again, that we've seen hiring for more admin posts, creating more admin posts, using money for lobbyists. Evidently, there are only 15 counties in Florida that put money towards lobbying our Legislature in order to get more money for our schools.
And Lee County is one of those 15 and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be spent for students."
She’s also concerned about the students with special medical needs being moved from the Buckingham Exceptional School to the Royal Palm Exceptional school and the reason for that move not being explained.
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