Mt. Airy Students, Parents And Teachers Protest School Budget Cuts
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - About a hundred people gathered on Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy, Sunday afternoon to urge state lawmakers to restore funding for public schools. Governor Corbett's budget cuts more than a billion dollars for school districts across the state, including $300-million for Philadelphia.
Parents and public school supporters warned the consequences would be dire.
"My school lost all of its money," says Vilnis Chakars, a second grader at Cook-Wissahickon in Manayunk, who says he knows what the governor's budget cuts would do to his school. "Two second grade teachers and two third grade teachers are being fired, I'm going to have no vice-principals and my favorite preps are being taken away."
Chakars and his parents were among those who gathered to protest the cuts. They were joined by the districts' finance director Mike Masch, who says the cuts Governor Corbett has proposed are unprecedented, "There has never been a year in which school funding across the state, not just in Philly, has been cut, ever."
Masch has proposed that the district eliminate busing and full-day kindergarten, among other things, to make up for the cuts, but he hopes legislators will restore the money before the district adopts a budget on May 31st.
Reported by Pat Loeb, KYW Newsradio 1060
