Local 500 Members Rally Against MCPS Cuts

On April 6th, Local 500 members joined parents, students, teachers, and administrators, as hundreds rallied at the Montgomery County Council against further cuts to MCPS.  Later, Local 500 President Merle Cuttitta, MCPS paraeducator Sherry Dionne, and Lynn White, part-time professor of Mathematics at Montgomery College (also represented by SEIU Local 500) testified on the critical need to continue adequate funding of public education in the county despite revenue shortfalls.

“Communities are standing up for schools and students and telling the County Council, ‘Enough is enough!  No more cuts to school funding!’” explained Cuttitta.  “MCPS is consistently ranked among the best school systems in the nation.  Our schools are Montgomery County’s anchor and its economic engine.  What will the county’s future look like if this council cut our schools to the bone?”

MCPS employs some 22,000 skilled, caring professionals and educates more than 140,000 students each year to ensure that the county has a competent, able workforce generation after generation.  County Executive Isiah Leggett has already reduced MCPS funding in his proposed budget for 2011 by $137 million, increasing class size and reducing programs and services for many of the county’s most vulnerable students. Yet there are some who want to see even more dramatic cuts. 

> View photos at Local 500's Flickr site