Sample+letters



 Parent, students and all community members who love learning: education in Florida is being cut back //again//. We are operating now on less money than we had in 2005-2006. Next year will be painful for students, employees and the community if the legislature doesn’t start funding education with some new revenue source. We realize that funding is a problem all over the country and that taxes are not popular with anyone. We also recognize that a federal stimulus package won’t serve our long term funding needs. We know that there are many loopholes for corporations in this state that legislators seem to be unwilling to revise and that sin taxes could be easily levied. Our legislators need to make tough choices about how many prisons they need to build when they choose to incarcerate people who are not dangerous to anyone - approximately 20% of those incarcerated are there on misdemeanors. Fine them and let them out. Spending $27,000 per year on a prisoner and $6,500 on a student shows us where our legislators’ priorities are and who they are beholden too. Their concerns certainly aren’t the future of this state. What business will choose to come to Florida when their employees kids will attend poorly funded schools? What corporation settles near universities that aren’t producing top of the line employees? What graduate of UF says to themselves – I’m staying in Florida and raising my children here? If our legislators cannot fund our schools better than 50th in the country (don’t let them fool you – according to the US Census per capita funding we are dead last!) than they do not deserve to stay in office. -Mrs. Campana

From the [|DBNJ] on February 08, 2009

School earns A+; it's legislators' turn

By GARY SHEPERSKY STUDENT VOICES

Dear Legislature:

Before you cut the amount of money that goes to my school -- Indian Trails Middle School -- think about this. If the school has no income, how does it buy new books and supplies to make the students smarter? Or when we can't support some of the after-school sports -- lots of the kids work for sports -- they might not even finish school. When kids don't have anything like sports to do, they might find another alternative, which could be drugs or alcohol.

To begin with, when we have no way of raising money for supplies and books, then the school gets in trouble for the students' grades not being high enough. Then you cut more money because of that. Teachers will be losing their jobs. I thought you were trying to stop people from becoming homeless, but you're creating more homelessness.

To continue with, when the amount of students who complete school drops by 25 percent, we know we have you to blame. We have done our part to become an A+ school. Now we need you to do your part and provide us with what we need.

In the end, in a couple of years when we hit the age of 16, the number of dropouts will probably rise. We the kids may possibly turn to drinking and using illegal substances, which will kill us slowly and keep us from the stuff we really need, such as family, friends and food. It depends on what you do.

So when we all are starving or have no home or are going to jail, we can blame you for taking away our life in school. Thank God you're building more prisons to hold all of our future in.

Shepersky, 13, lives in Palm Coast. It has been whispered in hallways and classrooms across the state that in the midst of a $350-million cut in Florida education funds for the next year, lawmakers have deemed it necessary to reserve a sum nearly as large as this figure to the construction of prisons and penitentiaries within the state. Although most would consider this fact blatantly puzzling, I believe our politicians are simply planning ahead. Withholding funds from schools, eliminating clubs and sports that keep children off the streets, eradicating the county of numerous job positions—it seems wise for officials to create a more developed reformatory system within Florida. After all, with all this new found spare time on their hands, that’s where students will end up. Nearly $6-million has been taken from Florida in the midst of state budget reductions throughout the country. Lawmakers have resolved that of this staggering figure, $357-million will be withheld from education. Knowledge of the current monetary crisis has spread like wildfire throughout Flagler County’s education system—in the past two weeks alone I’ve encountered immeasurable hearsay about the future of Matanzas, its students, and faculty. The gossip would have you believe that copious amounts of teachers and personnel will be let go, junior varsity sports will be eliminated, clubs and organizations will be abolished, and the construction of the year itself will be altered for the next school cycle—all in the name of penny pinching in the midst of overwhelming budget cuts. Those holding power within the county are probing frantically at statistics and figures, striving to cut the economic fat in alternative areas of our education system—areas that will produce a less direct effect upon students. At recent meetings regarding our county’s financial plans, school board members have presented unusual solutions to Flagler’s lucrative low—solutions that range from schedule modification to the implementation of a penny tax on non-essential items. For those who believe there are no resolutions to the current fiscal emergency occurring in Flagler County, this is not the case. Innovative solutions can be devised—it is the implementation of these answers that is problematic. For example, the proposed penny tax seems a logical and efficient resolution to the scarcity of funds within the county, as based on Miami-Dade’s decision to collect a half-penny sales tax on transportation. The county expects the local fraction of this tax to produce nearly $150 million per year, allowing Miami-Dade to improve its infrastructure. Nearly $20 million is being withheld from Flagler education during the next school year, yet through the application of a sales tax resembling that of Miami-Dade’s, Flagler could offset these restrictions and have funds to spend in additional areas. However, in a community where over twenty-four percent of the population is sixty-five years old or higher, education is not of the utmost priority, and supplementary taxes are not welcomed. As can be seen, the consequences of the financial disaster on Flagler County, its employees, and students are indefinite. Forced to work with the hand they have been dealt, it can be inferred that school board members have some challenging decisions ahead, and until those decisions are made, the future of students and citizens is only guesswork. However, one detail can be discerned—the future of Flagler County students has been held captive in a prison of query, more formidable than those officials have deemed necessary to build. ~a high school senior in Flagler County

Hi my name is XXXXXXX I am fifteen in the 8th grade at Indian Trails Middle school. To me cutting the budget for school is very selfish and kind of crazy. I love school and I think that we should be able to enjoy school with sports and all that other good stuff. School is too important to me to let it end this way and I think that you all should think about this very hard. If school becomes the way you all are going to make it, cutting teachers putting over twenty students in one class, we are not going to be able to learn as much as we should. You might as well say bump the kids of AMERICA. Who cares if they do not succeed in life or become thieves and go to jail. To me taking money from schools and putting prison inmates before us students is like telling me go to prison - you will survive. I care too much so please don't do this to us. We are too fragile and important for that. Thank you.

Hi my name is xxxxxxxx. I am fifteen and in the 8th grade at Indian Trails Middle school. To be cutting our school's budget is just preposterous and very selfish. Why? Because we as kids need the fun activities we get at school so that we learn what we need to learn for our future. Take kids who wish to be artists - without art what will they do to learn the basics in art or kids who want to be engineers and they don't have technology to teach them about machines. There are so many reasons why we as kids and teens need these activities for our future and plus if you take the physical activities just think kids and teens will become lazy and the obesity level will go sky high and why do we need amusement parks more advertised? Why have more money for prisons? Its like say hey kids come to the prisons they're like hotels now so are you trying to make this state a place for kids and ten or a place for crimes and criminals? Or do you want kids to be the next president? Just think about it. Life would be better as the kids learn more so please don't take the money. Keep our public schools fresh. We can't have a school with nothing to do. Most of the kids in school that like extra fun stuff in school stay in school to keep enjoying the fun. About 1/20 of the kids in the school will be a big rockstar, football player, and more. Kids love the fun stuff. If all you did was come and learn about history, science, L.A, and math, it would not be fun. So please let us keep the money we need to grow and become successful with. -tori h.

What the state is trying to do to the schools in Florida is a tragedy.Kids come to school for basketball, football, hockey,and other fun school activities.Kids barely like coming to school and when we find something to do and look forward to you guys want to take them away.The budget cut that you are doing and firing the teachers that worked hard for their jobs are unfair. You will just leave them with nothing. That's not right. So think about these things before you want to end the things that mean a lot to other people and not just yourselves. -Kadeem W.