[Durham INC] YOUR INPUT NEEDED: MORE DPS CUTS LOOMING

[Melissa Rooney]

All Durham citizens are invited to attend a “Conversation with Commissioners,” tomorrow night, March 23rd,
at 7pm at Holton School (401 North Driver Street). The meeting will include a brief introduction
from the county and a primary focus on questions from citizens about
the upcoming budget.  Another session is planned for March 30, 7:00 pm
at Jordan High School.


This is a prime time to address concerns over further cuts in the DPS (Durham Public Schools) budget, which a recent meeting reports could amount to cutting as many as 400 jobs, among other disconcerting cuts to important school programs.

School Board members will also be present at tomorrow night's meeting.

I hope that you can make one of these public meetings.

At the very least, I hope you will take the time to take the 5 minutes to email any
and all concerns, suggestions for ways to cut costs (others have
recommended reducing the thermostat in winter and raising it in summer;
energy upgrades including independent thermostats for classrooms;
limiting paper usage per teacher or at least reducing duplicate copies sent home with siblings; etc.), and ways to increase DPS's
already skeletal budget (use the RAINY DAY fund that was created for
hard economic times like these, but which government officials are loathe to tap), to the board of county commissioners AND the school board at the following email addresses:

County Commissioners:
MPage at co.durham.nc.us; ereckhow at co.durham.nc.us; jbowser at co.durham.nc.us; BHeron at co.durham.nc.us; bhowerton at co.durham.nc.us;  mruffin at co.durham.nc.us

School Board:

minnie.forte-brown at dpsnc.net, heidi.carter at dpsnc.net, omega.curtis-parker at dpsnc.net, fredrick.davis at dpsnc.net, kirsten.kainz at dpsnc.net, stephen.martin at dpsnc.net, leigh.bordley at dpsnc.net, hank.hurd at dpsnc.net

There
is power in numbers: We need parents/teachers/citizens like you to make
your voices heard in order to have any input in the decisions affecting
our kids and us.

[Of course, concerns and suggestions/recommendations for how to trim the county budget in areas other than DPS would be great too!]

Sincerely,
Melissa (Rooney)
P.S. please remove ANY spaces that may somehow have been inserted into the email addresses above.


      
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