GARDEN STATE COALITION OF SCHOOLS/GSCS

210 West State Street, Trenton, NJ 08608

609 394 2828/fax 609 396 7620

Website 'www.gscschool.org'

email 'gscs@ebnet.org'

Dear Concerned Parent-Citizen-Community Member,

Thank you for your interest in the activities of the Garden State Coalition of Schools (GSCS). As you know, GSCS is a 13 year old statewide grassroots advocacy group comprised of approximately 120 school districts throughout the state of New Jersey. GSCS seeks to maintain quality public education for our students and promote reasonable state policies to support the promise of that education. GSCS member districts tend to come from suburban communities where their wealth factors span from low-middle income to upper income. The common denominator of the GSCS community is not only concern for good education, thus stable property values, but also for reasonable spending practices in schools.

When you filled out the GSCS Survey this spring, you indicated your interest in receiving email updates from GSCS on occasion. Attached to today's email is the

GSCS is very concerned about the public misunderstanding of what drives school costs and what can be done to reduce the over reliance on property taxes to fund our schools. We ask that the state provide communities with 'tools for schools' that address the real cost drivers in school budgets, such as mandated special education programs and state health benefits plans - where costs far outpace inflation. Nipping around the edges, such as the recent school funding legislation that fast tracked in Trenton during the Appropriations Act process in later June, will not have any real long term impact on taxpayer dollars and will at the same time have negative impact on quality education by increasing class sizes and removing local control from the budget process...even when districts support the mselves locally up to 95% of their budget costs. This legislation (S1701/A99) serves more to delay substantive ways to address school costs, and unfortunately fools the greater public at the same time. The Constitutional Convention Task Force to be appointed by the Governor has yet to be named, and the promise of a Convention itself could not even be effected until 2007 in reality.

GSCS plans campaign for greater public understanding of what it takes to support schools and how local property tax increases are far more the result of state policy (or lack thereof) than local decisions. In order to move Trenton to provide ‘tools for our schools’, we need to grow our grassroots even stronger. We also need to educate ourselves more to these issues that confront schools today so we can communicate credible and focused points to Trenton, and to our own communities, that make plain and practical sense.

We need your help. Please feed back to us at 'jodid40@aol.com' as to whether you want to be kept on our 'grassroots army' email list. If you share our concern and have the time to be a part of our effort, please begin by forwarding this email with others you think may share our common ground. You might be surprised to know that a little of your time means a lot in state level politics. Legislators often comment on how they have changed their minds based on calls and letters from their constituents. The more knowledgeable their constituent is, the more likely legislators are to make informed, not sound bite, decisions.

GSCS is spending the summer building our lists, data gathering, responding to bad polices inherent in the fastracked funding legislation, including an investigation of legal issues. GSCS is also organizing general statewide meetings for this fall and winter to present issues and possible solutions. We will be meeting regularly to share information with legislators and administration officials and seeking out editorial boards as well. We encourage you to meet locally with your elected leaders and to copy any of your communications to legislative leadership. We will stay in touch with you.

Have good rest of the summer, read the papers once and awhile yet don't believe everything you do read! We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your ears and your efforts.

 Cc: GSCS member districts; GSCS Parent Network Committee