City-Wide Rally to Stop School Closures

April 19^th

City-Wide Rally Against

School Closures

At Tweed

· Bloomberg has already made the PEP vote to CLOSE 25 SCHOOLS THIS YEAR.

· On April 26^th Bloomberg will make the PEP VOTE TO CLOSE 33 MORE.

· This will mean an astonishing 58 closures in one year.

· Mayor Bloomberg has destroyed, and continuesto destroy, communities with his undemocratic and unjust policies that ignore the needs of our students.

· Join us on Thursday April 19^thin front of TWEED (52 Chambers Street, Manhattan) at 4 PM to stand up and say NO MORE SCHOOL CLOSURES: The rally will begin at 4:30

· E-Mail: Stopturnaround@gmail.com for more info.

· This rally was initiated by a coalition of chapter leaders, delegates, and members from seven of the 33 schools. We urge you to join us

Occupy the DOE Invites Parents to Attend the Next Panel for Education (PEP) Meeting on Thursday, February 9th

If you have something to say about the state of public education in NYC please review the e-mail and video below.

Gregory

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Come to the PEP and sign up to speak on the the Peoples Mic not on the Puppets Mic!
IT’S TIME TO OCCUPY THE PEP
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH, 5:30PM
Brooklyn Technical High School, 29 Fort Greene Pl (between Fulton and Dekalb) in Brooklyn
Near the Nevins 2/3/4/5 or the Dekalb B/D/N/Q/R
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/events/104521729674642/

Background
On Thursday, February 9th, the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) will hold an open meeting and then a vote to close down dozens more schools. The PEP is an un-elected 13-member body (the majority of whom are appointed by Mayor 1% Bloomberg) whose decisions dramatically affect the lives of the 99%. Every time a vote for school closings has come before the panel, they have voted on behalf of their puppeteer, Mayor Bloomberg.

No matter what impassioned students, parents, educators or elected officials have said in the past, the PEP has ALWAYS voted against the people. PEP meetings are open to the public.

We, students, parents and educators from the 99%, invite you to join us in having our OUR OWN VOTE on the fate of our schools.

If you don’t believe Mayor 1%’s puppet board should be empowered to make decisions about our schools, come help us OPEN THE MEETING UP! In October, the panel walked out of their meeting and we held our own meeting. Click here to see how it went down. Now, let’s do it with thousands!

Ways YOU can Occupy the PEP:
Option A: Are you a student, parent, educator or elected official from a closing school?
Members of your school community should plan to use THE PEOPLE’S MIC to speak out about the mayor’s policies and about your school! To see how the people’s mic works, click here.

EXAMPLE I am here because the panel shouldn’t be voting without the community’s consent to close down schools. In my school…

EXAMPLE: I am here because the mayor has it all wrong, and because he wants to take over space in our public schools to hand it over to charter schools. Our school is an amazing community…

EXAMPLE: I am here because what is happening here is wrong! Because the people have spoken and they say enough is enough!…

Or you can plan a song, performance, or skit. Every school that the PEP plans to vote on will have a chance to speak out and use the people’s mic. Please practice! The people’s mic can be tricky and you have to speak in short phrases of three to seven words and wait for people to respond. But it’s a powerful tool that can change the balance of power in the room! Let’s use it!

Then the PEOPLE (not the puppet panel) will vote on the state of your school!
Option B: Not from a closing school but want to support the occupation of this undemocratic meeting?
There are definitely ways you can participate! We need your voices to help amplify the voices of those speaking on behalf of their schools. We also need folks to sit near the aisle to protect the people’s mic. And we’re asking folks to wear shirts or stickers that identify who we are and what we stand for. For example, you might consider wearing a shirt or sticker that says ”Student Against School Closings” or “Parent for Community Control of Schools”, etc.

Please contact occupythedoe@gmail.com with any questions. Let’s open up the PEP and put the decision making power where it belongs—with the people!

Occupy D.O.E Footage: October 25th 2011

Here is one more example on how the "Occupy Wall Street" movement has shown itself to be a populist movement taking on various fronts. The following footage was taken at an "Occupy the D.O.E." protest at a recent Panel for Education meeting. Once again you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all the time! As the power elites send their puppets to try and privatize our schools, for their own benefit, we should be proud that there are activists out there letting them know this is America and that our spirit is unique. If these educrats want to make a difference let them get in the classroom and teach. They would not last a week in an inner city classroom. $1 rent for charter schools run by for-profit entities, lucrative consulting contracts, lucrative technology contracts and lucrative testing contracts are what they are after. Every know and then they need to be reminded who hold he reigns and that our tax dollars pay their salaries.

Gregory

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