If you believe that every student in America deserves a fair chance to succeed, you should care about the decisions that the Superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) in Colorado is proposing to balance the budget for the 2012-13 school year. It could set a precedent for your local school district some day.

The BVSD Superintendent Bruce Messinger is faced with the difficult task of balancing the BVSD budget by cutting $6.2 million. He had said that he would be presenting options to the school board regarding how to account for the shortfall. However, he only laid out one option, which is currently on the BVSD website at http://www.bvsd.org/FinancialTransparency/Documents/2012-13%20Preliminary%20Budget%20Information.pdf This option includes unacceptable larger cuts to programs that directly support our neediest students, and smaller cuts to programs that do not directly affect these populations in BVSD. 11 out of 19 of the proposed budget cuts on p. 4 of this document directly impact our most at risk students including those living in poverty, those learning English, and minority students, amounting to $4,794,166 out of $6,089,137 in total cuts. As a result, most BVSD elementary schools serving these populations will be losing between 4-7 of their teachers, while the other schools on the average will lose only 1 teacher each.

Please sign this petition to tell Bruce Messinger that it is unacceptable to tell the BVSD community:

* that no budget decisions have been finalized even though principals have been notified in writing that they should present the list of the eliminated positions, and proceed with the cuts by May 15th, 2012.

* that he wants input from BVSD stakeholders, yet public budget meetings are scheduled for May 14th and 16th. (details at http://www.bvsd.org/frontnews/Pages/PublicForum.aspx) This leaves no time for different ideas to be considered for balancing the budget before May 15th.

* that he welcomes other ideas for balancing the budget, yet he has only proposed cuts that disproportionately target students who are economically disadvantaged as compared with those who are not.

The BVSD community has shown willingness to have an intelligent and respectful debate and to work together to resolve our budgetary challenges. Now we need to express to Bruce Messinger that he must answer our questions and reverse the unilateral teacher cuts that will impact needy students disproportionately when compared with those who are not at risk. As both a parent and a teacher in one of the BVSD schools who serves students at risk, I hope you will sign this petition.