Seventy-four people testified at this afternoon’s Senate Finance Committee’s budget hearing. Fourteen of these speakers were there to ask senators to keep the school funding provisions in the House budget bills, at the levels provided there. The hearing will reconvene this evening at 6:00.

Compelling testimony on school funding was heard from:

• students expressing their disappointment when denied opportunities that their peers in wealthier towns take for granted (foreign language, music or AP classes, and participating in Extended Learning Opportunities).
• superintendents and school board members describing the realities they face when state funding inadequacies make it necessary to cut staff and programming year after year
• a mayor concerned about the impact of exorbitant tax rates on elderly residents and citing the need to lay off police officers and fire fighters
• an individual who grew up in a property poor town describing what it’s like to go through schools that are threatened with having their accreditation revoked
• other concerned citizens who believe that all NH children should have fair opportunities for an adequate education and that taxes should be raised in a uniform and fair way

It’s important that people continue to show up and testify. We need the Senators to know that their constituents are clamoring for a solution to the school funding problem we currently face.

Please consider testifying at one of the two remaining public hearings:

1) Tonight, Tuesday May 7, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. in Representatives’ Hall, second floor of the New Hampshire State House, 107 N Main Street, Concord, NH, and

2) Wednesday evening, May 8, at 7:00 p.m. at Manchester City Hall, Aldermanic Chambers (3^rd floor), 1 City Hall Plaza, Manchester, NH

Your individual stories and experiences as students, parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers are critical.

One last plug: If you are a teacher, administrator or student who has worked in or attended both property-poor and property-wealthy towns, please consider sharing your sense of the differences. You are in a unique position to comment on the different opportunities offered to students based on their zip codes.