PPA+121807

Dear Friends:

I wanted to cyber-personally pat us all on the back for coming out over the past few months on the Philadelphia Parking Authority issue. Every one of us made a personal effort to attend at least one Parking Authority meeting. Today, Mayor-Elect Michael Nutter and Rep. Dwight Evans in an acknowledgement of the intense public pressure (led by us!) called for a deal which would result in what appears to be a long term funding deal for the school district. Next year, we'll receive about $1.2 million, the year after $1.7 million, and we'll expect that money to continue and grow. It may not have been quite as much as we hoped but it was quite a victory on an intractable agency that has long been politically immune.

It's important to remember that parents pushed this issue from the beginning. We originally identified this issue because it was a place to build new political alliances and talk about our schools (not to mention the PPA was not exactly the public's favorite entity). Gerald Wright had the brilliant idea to use the Parking Authority's trumpeting of a $37 million property sale as the kick-off to our campaign back in September. Parents Steve Bell and Mary Jo Kannon spent hours on end pouring over Parking Authority audits -- which we acquired before the School District did -- and took the time to go line by line and identify areas of concern which turned out to be the exact areas that the Parking Authority conceded to us! Niel McDowell got a website up and running detailing all the media coverage and archiving our work. Parents met with Mike Nutter a few weeks ago to press the issue. We haunted them in Harrisburg at an Appropriations Committee hearing. Parents gave moving testimony, brought photos, talked about special needs, talked about it with people they knew, called legislators, and really turned out in numbers for every Parking Authority board hearing. Allies and friends at TaxiWorkers Alliance, Lance Haver, PCCY, PEF, Good Schools PA, EPOP, the PFT and Local 1201, Student Union and YUC, the Notebook, Philly IMC and Media Mobilizing Project, Asian Americans United, Assoc. of Phila. School Librarians, and many other groups supported the work. We also were able to see a real partnership with Home & School Council and PLA.

Although we didn't get to give the Grinch award, almost 20 schools and organizations signed onto the award. We did have fun and actresses like Pam Hooks were ready to go. Alison McDowell contributed to great signs. I attached our popular one (even the Parking Authority employees snatched some as souveneirs!) of PPA Executive Direc. Vince Fenerty as the Grinch, courtesy of photoshopping allies at Asian Americans United. It's important to remember that any effort like this is united and broad. We hope that this success and movement will encourage us to think about the power and possibility of us as parents making change and the simple force of our talking about our schools and children with passion and heart. At the same time, we should remember that all of us sacrificed personal, family and work time on this issue, and scrambled for child care, ran around on public transportation, and paid plenty of parking fees. This work isn't easy but it is making a difference from Philly to Harrisburg. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday (you'll see a similar mass email from me tomorrow morning) and thanks for the opportunity to get to know everyone.

Sincerely, Helen Helen Gym

Parents United for Public Education 215-808-1400 hgbf@aol.com

//Parents United for Public Education is an independent group of citywide parents working for fiscal transparency, public process, and a school budget that places kids and classrooms first. For more information, please contact Helen Gym at       215-808-1400   or Aissia Richardson at        215-236-2100. To unsubscribe from this email please respond to// parentsunitedphila@gmail.com. Visit us online at [|http://parentsunitedphila.googlepages.com/.]