GRASSROOTS at Work:

4-24-06 HopewellValley Regional School District letter to local legislator:

Senator Shirley Turner, Chair of the Senate Education Committee

April 24, 2006

The Honorable Shirley K. Turner

State Senator, 15th District

1440 Pennington Road

Ewing, New Jersey 08618

Dear Senator Turner:

On Wednesday April 19th, appearing on Ewing radio station New Jersey 101.5 WKXW, Governor Corzine called for changes in our school funding: "We're going to need a new school funding formula, because I think we have a broken system today where we're more focused on districts than we are kids," he said.

Yes, we agree, the school funding system is broken!

This year, 48% of the state’s school budgets failed.  It was the first time in 8 years that Hopewell Valley School’s budget failed too.  The voters are clearly saying “enough is enough.”

We have contacted you on several occasions asking for relief and sharing with you the concerns of our residents.  I implore you, as our Senator and as the Senate Education Chair, to take the lead on fixing this broken system.

Sincerely,

Heidi Kahme

Chair

Cc: Governor Jon Corzine

Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora

Dr. Judith A. Ferguson

Mayor Vanessa Sandom

Mayor James Benton

Mayor David Nettles

Garden State Coalition of Schools/GSCS