We Are Growing!
Since our inception over a year ago, we have grown from LCS ProActive Parents to Pro Active Parent of America. The issues we battle here in Leon County, Florida, are the same budgetary issues schools across the nation face. We just happen to lead the pack in underfunding.
In the upcoming weeks, you will see Pro Active Parents of America change as we expand to keep communities across the nation informed. To do this, we need your help. If you do not see your community represented, and you would like to be our Community Partner, e-mail us and we will get you started. We have a long way to go, and this fight is far from over!
Never Before Has There Been Such a Need to be Involved
We are in an era of budgetary starvation for our public schools. From elementary schools to colleges and universities, we are losing funding at an alarming rate. Our Superintendent, Jackie Pons along with our School Board, do an excellent job with the ever-shrinking resources we get from the State of Florida. But they can no more run the school district with a fraction of what they need anymore than we can drive a car with no gas in the tank.
The Facts - Florida is an appalling 50th in education funding; dropping from 48th last year
- Education faces its worst budget crisis in 37 years
- Smaller class size is mandated by law, yet funds for these classes are denied
The Three Largest Areas of Expense For Our State Government Are Prisons, Social Services, and Education
It is mind-numbingly simple: When we add educated people to our communities, it naturally lessens the need for prison and social services funding. It is incredibly short-sighted of our Legislators to neglect the educational needs of Florida that literally shape our future in lieu of building more prisons and availing more for welfare, Medicaid and other social entitlements.
The More Funding We Lose, The More Kids We Lose
Many kids will drop out of school if we lose the very programs that make school a place they want to be. Without the arts, sports, 7th period school days, and all the other activities that make school fun, many children will see school as nothing more than a life support system for FCAT scores.
Dropouts can quickly become drains on our community; 40% of the inmates on Florida's death row are high school dropouts. We will either pay now to educate, or later to incarcerate. We owe each of our children the opportunity to have a productive future; something we can no longer provide if we don't get involved now.
It's your choice: Sit back and complain about how bad things are, or band together as a community and fight. The Constitution of the State of Florida states, " "The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require. To assure that children attending public schools obtain a high quality education, the legislature shall make adequate provision to ensure that, by the beginning of the 2010 school year, there are a sufficient number of classrooms so that..." (2008 FS Article IX, Section 1A)
We must take our schools back from the Legislators who don’t know our kids, and refuse to fund education. Now is the time! If we don't act now, we will lose our public schools as we know them. Please, join us!