Fall Creek PTA

Save Our School Petition – Online

An online version of the paper petition is now on PetitionOnline. Please post that link wherever you can, as soon as you can – via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs, appropriate lists and groups, etc.

That petition contains only a brief statement, so please also summarize the situation in your own words as appropriate and add links to the fact sheet and talking points.

NOTE: If you have already signed the paper petition, you don’t need to sign the online petition.  Both petitions are identical and we’d like to make sure to count everybody just once.

Save Our School Petition – Paper

Get out and Canvass for our School!

Through the Neighborhood Impacts committee we have created a paper petition for Fall Creek parents, taxpayers, renters and voters to sign to oppose the idea of closing Fall Creek School.  This petition will be presented to the Board to demonstrate that many are against this plan.

We are asking that you help us in this effort by bringing the petition around to your neighbors and asking them to sign it.  If only 20 people get 25 signatures each, for example, we will have 500 signatures opposing this plan. Please commit to printing off a copy of the petition, and going to each home on your block and the next block (ONLY 2 blocks!) and talking with your neighbors and friends about this issue. You should also bring copies of the fact sheet and our talking points to aid in discussing the issue. If you can, bring extra copies of these to leave with people.

Some things to keep in mind as you do this:

• Keep it Brief–first ask if they know about the plan.  If they don’t explain quickly what’s up, and then ask them to sign.  If there are 2 adults in the household, get both to sign.
• Pick a time when they will be Home—Today (Sunday, 2/7/10) is a good day to reach people at home.  If they aren’t there make sure to go back.  We really need to show that the community cares about this issue, even if a person doesn’t have a child currently enrolled in Fall Creek school.
• Get their printed name, signature and address on the lines provided.  It will carry more weight with the Board if they know these are real people with real addresses.  ALSO, try to get adults only to sign.  Of course children feel strongly about this issue but we want voters & taxpayers foremost.  If someone is renting, that’s fine.
• We’d like to avoid having people sign multiple times, and they should sign either the online petition or the paper petition, but not both.
• Bring your signatures into school so they can be assembled together–We will have a petition-signing table in the lobby starting tomorrow morning where you can bring them.  Otherwise put in the PTA President’s drawer in the main office, and we will get them from there. We will gather what we have by Tuesday afternoon (2/10/10), and continue to canvass.  If we have an overwhelming response by the Board meeting we can (hopefully) present them to the Board through our designated speakers.
• Make sure to sign it yourself!

We will be asking for signatures in the school lobby in the morning and afternoon.  Thanks so much!

News 10 Coverage

News 10 coverage of possible school shutdown (Feb 5)

Featured: Rebecca James, Fall Creek PTA President

Save our School Committees

To become more involved in the effort to save Fall Creek, please send – to the designated email address below – your name, contact info, and one sentence about what you want to work on. If you are already researching something, please add a list of the topics (without details) and follow up with separate emails (one per topic) to add details. This will help the contact people process a large amount of email and information.

Number crunching

Budget analysis, collecting data, assessing direct and indirect costs of this plan, such as transportation, code requirements for preK
numbers@fallcreekpta.org (Contact person is Aaron Buechel)

Communications
Preparing information (fact sheets, talking points) for distribution, creating fliers, maintaining media contacts
communications@fallcreekpta.org (Contact people are Lauren McFeeley & Kenny Berkowitz)

Political Action
Tracking the school board/looking at the Albany issue/Connecting with other schools/researching what worked for others who fought proposed school closures
politicalaction@fallcreekpta.org (Contact person is Karen Rodriguez)

Neighborhood Impact
Examining impact on property taxes, quality of life, and other factors on the Fall Creek neighborhood/downtown; connect to Ithaca Downtown Partnership.
neighborhood@fallcreekpta.org (Contact people are Trena Haffenden & Jane Cullings)

Important Meetings

7 p.m., Tuesday Feb. 9 – School Board meeting, board room, ICSD administration building, 400 Lake Street
This issue is not on the agenda, but there will be 30 minutes to address the board. That only gives time for a few speakers (and parents are meeting this weekend to plan for a variety of statements), but we think it’s critical to have a huge turnout to show our concern. Wear your Fall Creek t-shirt and try to come early, around 6pm!  We’re discouraging people bringing elementary-aged kids to the BOE meeting in order to maintain as professional an air as possible.

6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 10 – Strategy Meeting at Fall Creek Elementary School, child care provided.
Updates from Karen Keller and PTA President Rebecca James; break out into work groups (detailed below)

If you are able to speak at Tuesday’s BOE meeting please keep these things in mind:

1) You only have 2 minutes to speak, so keep it concise
2) Ask for a special meeting to discuss this issue
3) Stay positive
4) Don’t talk about closing other schools as a way of keeping Fall Creek open
5) Thank the Board for their work and willingness to listen

Family Dance Photos

Thank you to everyone for coming out Thursday night to the Family Dance!  Despite the crushing news from earlier in the week, the gym was filled with lots of joy and smiles.  Special thanks to Vikki Armstrong for teaching and leading, the Contradictions for the fantastic music, and Sarah Blodgett for the wonderful photographs.  Be sure to check out Sarah’s web photo album of the dance!

Albany Write-a-Thon starts NOW

Media Coverage

Channel 9 WSYR News coverage of possible school shutdown (Feb 4)

Featured parents: Craig Duncan, Rick Wallace and Eric Dixon

Minutes Available

The draft minutes from last night’s special PTA meeting (regarding the proposed closing of Fall Creek School) are available on the website.  You can download the minutes using the following link:

PTA Special Meeting Minutes 2010-02-03 – Draft

Please send any corrections to secretary@fallcreekpta.org

Other meeting minutes are available at the meetings and minutes section of the PTA website

Organizing to Save Fall Creek School

Thank you to all of those who turned out for the impromptu meeting at the school last night. We had at least 75 people who came and we were fortunate to have three school board members there to answer our questions. The minutes of the meeting will go out on the listserv soon and will also be posted on our web site.

We plan to form four strategy groups to go forward.

• Number crunching (collecting ICSD budget info and numbers for budget, etc. for our school)
• Communications (talking points, media liaison)
• School board liaison (and other political issues, including connecting with Albany)
• Exploring Successful Strategies (looking at lessons from LACS & others)

Please let me know (president@fallcreekpta.org) if you want to be a contact person for any of those groups. Once we have contact people in place, those folks can act as a conduit for information via email and can begin meeting together to strategize. I know a lot of people are already out there doing research and networking. While this is a scary time, please know that it would be hard to find another school community with more involved and talented people. Together, we have an incredible amount of energy, insight, and connections.

Also:

• We are working to schedule a meeting for everyone at the school next week that we hope will have childcare.
• Folks on Facebook are beginning to share the letters they wrote, questions, and ideas at our group there: Fall Creek PTA
• Write to the board: budget@icsd.k12.ny.us; Those comments go to all the board members and the central administration. (Please work toward a respectful tone – remember whether this happens or not depends on whether five board members -the majority out of nine-decide to take this off the table.)
• Make sure everyone in our community is on the listserv to get updates on this process. (People can sign up in the box in the bottom right corner on our web site: www.fallcreekpta.org

Rebecca James
Fall Creek PTA President
president@fallcreekpta.org