Let's hope this letter to Maragaret MacDiarmid gets a meeting

VANCOUVER - In an attempt to create a dialog about the funding crisis, a number of stakeholders (including Local 15) got together and wrote this letter requesting a meeting with the Minister Of Education, Maragaret MacDiarmid. Hopefully this will prompt a response from her and we will be able to sit down and have a proper discussion about this looming situation. We cannot afford any longer to have silence from this Minister, especially when our school system is at risk.

Please read below, we sent this letter off to her today.

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Dear Dr. MacDiarmid,

Trustees and representatives of Vancouver School District's stakeholder groups are deeply concerned about the potentially damaging effect the preliminary operating budget proposals will have on public education in our city, and have come together to ask for an urgent meeting with you.

It is the 11th hour and our last opportunity to impress upon you the seriousness of the deficit facing the Vancouver Board of Education for 2010-11. Trustees are scheduled to meet Thursday for final deliberations and possible adoption of a budget that will cut $16.32 million in district spending.

The signatories to this letter wish to meet with you at your earliest convenience to share our concerns that our world-class public education system is at risk of deterioration due to the chronic and increasing financial pressure from provincial under funding.

On behalf of the Vancouver Board of Education, the Vancouver District Parents' Advisory Council, the Vancouver Teachers' Federation, the Vancouver Elementary Principals' and Vice Principals' association, the Vancouver Association of Secondary School Administrators, the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 15, the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 407, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 963, and the Vancouver District Student Council, we urge you and this government to invest in Vancouver’s public schools.

We look forward to your positive response to our meeting request.