Love Your Schools

We hope you will get to the polls tomorrow to vote on the 2013-2014 Canandaigua School District Budget vote.  Won’t you join our text-a-thon too?  All you have to do is sent text reminders to your friends and family so they remember to vote too.

Investment in education represents a commitment to our children’s future and to the vitality of our community.  Love Your Schools feels The Board of Education has proposed a budget that continues to support the educational success and character development of all students while taking into account today’s economic climate.  We hope you will take time to vote.

Your vote counts!  Find out where you vote here.

See you at the polls!

Thanks to everyone for all your help making the Love Your Schools Rally such a success on Saturday. We had several hundred folks come out to march and support all that we love about our schools.   The Rain held off and we ended up enjoying the music, art, robotics, student group displays and more!  There were art projects for the kids and everyone had a great time.   Stay tuned for some more photos but you can catch some photos here and on or Face Book page.

We have LAWN Signs for pick up at 48 Howell Street.  They have been designed so we can use them next year as well.  We hope you’ll consider picking one up so you can remind folks driving or walking by your home to vote on May 21st.

Thanks for your support. Together we can celebrate all that we love about our schools and support our community by keeping the high quality of education in Canandaigua!

COME JOIN US ON SATURDAY FOR OUR LOVE YOUR SCHOOLS RALLY.

MAY 11 – 10 – 2 pm

Downtown CananDAIGUA

Activities for the little ones; music for all; student demonstrations and a MARCH at NOON!

Help us celebrate all that we LOVE about our schools.

Click here for our MEDIA ALERT on the event.

See you there!

Get your lawn sign today!  We want to remind folks that the school budget VOTE is May 21st!  Please pick them up at 48 Howell Street in Canandaigua. We have a self-service station all set up on the porch of the house.  Just sign the form; deposit your donation ($8 covers the cost of the sign and holder – please offer more if you can as  a donation toward other expenses) and grab your sign. 

Don’t live in an area where it will get traffic?  Buy one and ask a friend to put it up in their yard!  REMINDER: Don’t forget to come our downtown Rally- May 11th. 10 -2 at Common’s Park, Downtown Canandaigua.   Join our FB event and share with your friends!  We hope to see you there!

Mark your calendars!  We will be having our Love Your Schools Downtown Rally and March – Sat. May 11 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Common’s Park, Downtown Canandaigua.

There will be students performing from elementary school, middle school and the Academy, as well as children’s activities, art displays, robotics and other student activities as well.    You won’t want to miss this as it’s a celebration of all the things we LOVE about  our Canandaigua School District!

Come join us for the march down main street at NOON.  We’ll assembly at Atwater Park and walk down to Common’s Park where the Mayor Ellen Polemini will read a proclamation and we’ll hear more music.

Hopefully it will be a great day and wonderful way to remind Canandaigua voters just what we are voting for on May 21st.

So – please mark your calendars now. Won’t you join us to celebrate with us?

Stay tuned for information on the budget vote here – in the next few weeks!

Guest Post: Written by Laurie Riedman

I hope you have heard the term Gap Elimination Adjustment as it relates to NY State education funding.  But do you really understand it?  Love Your Schools feels this is important to understand because you WILL be hearing  more about it as schools — including Canandaigua — begin the difficult job of creating school budgets for next year.

Please check out this video that explains what GEA is and why you should care about it.

Gap Elmination Adjustment – Watch and Learn

Stay tuned here for more information about how this has impacted Canandaigua City School District’s budgets in years past and this year as well.

Here’s a hint of why this is important for us:

Canandaigua alone has lost 15 million dollars in state funding over the last four years.  In the first three years of GEA NY State school districts lost 6.1 billion in state aid. 

We need to end GEA and we need your help to do it!

Won’t you please sign a letter to your legislator NOW?  Use the link below and it will literally take you two minutes.  Start your timer now and tell me if it takes you longer.  Best two minutes you can spend today (besides reading this post!)

Online email to YOUR state legislator

Thanks and hope to see you THURSDAY, March 21 at 6:30 pm at the Canandaigua Middle School auditorium for the new Budget presentation!

While our Valentine Campaign was a wild success, all of us at Love Your Schools are so grateful for all of your support — A big THANK YOU goes out to all of you – whether you simply signed a valentine or helped us work on the campaign!

Unfortunately — we are at a critical time in the budget process and THE TIME IS NOW to get our voices heard in Albany.  The clock is ticking and our lawmakers are now working on our state budget.  Their decisions will impact our children and our community.

You may heard about the three percent Education aid increase Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed.  What you may not have heard is that if it is approved not every district would get an increase under his plan –in fact, according to some reports, nearly a quarter of districts – many in Upstate New York  – would get less than they did this past year.  Why?  One of the reasons is because they will use the same formula to determine who gets that aid – and that formula disadvantages Upstate New York.

Increase or not, many area superintendents are saying they will wrestle with deficits and be forced to cut teachers and academic programs if Governor Cuomo’s budget is adopted.  While we aren’t sure what that means for Canandaigua, you can be sure that cuts will be made.

We know that these fiscal issues are complex and that it’s not an easy problem to solve. However, we need to see ACTION now.  We need our lawmakers to be willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work necessary to begin to fix the problems.  Addressing the unfairness of the gap elimination in the formula is a very good start.

Over the next few weeks funding to education is being discussed and decided upon in Albany.

NOW is the time for us to let our voices be heard.  Please join me and other Love Your Schools supporters in calling or emailing our legislators and lawmakers in the next two weeks so they know we are watching. 

I’ve created an email you can use as a starting point.  Please consider taking time now to send a few emails or make a phone call.  If you can only send two – send to the co-chairs of the Education budget committee listed below.  

Please do this if you can. — Thanks!

Laurie Riedman

Education Budget Chairs:

John J. Flanagan  / 631-361-2154 / flanagan@nysenate.gov

Catherine Nolan /  518-455-4851 / NolanC@assembly.state.ny.us

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

518-474-8390

send email here:  http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php

Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb

315-781-2030 /bkolb@briankolb.com

Senator Michael Nozzolio (54th Senate District)

315-568-9816 /nozzolio@nysenate.gov

Senator Ted O’Brien (55th Senate District)

585-223-1800 /obrien@nysenate.gov

SAMPLE EMAIL:

Dear   (NAME):

Time is of the essence.  I know the next few weeks are critical as you work hard to finalize our state budget. I am writing to you to urge you to help Upstate New York communities continue our commitment to fund a high quality education for our children.

Please cut gap elimination from the education funding formula and PLEASE stop issuing unfunded mandates.

Please act on this now.

Thank you for your consideration –

(YOUR NAME: ADDRESS: EMAIL: CONTACT INFO)