PG-Politics: Fwd: Heather Iliff Newsletter & Community Meeting

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Heather Iliff <heatheriliff@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 9:45 AM
Subject: Newsletter & Community Meeting - March
To: dcrussell@gmail.com

Newsletter from Heather Iliff

March 5, 2009

Dear Diane,

We are glad to celebrate the great news that thanks to President Obama and our members of Congress who fought for education funding in the Federal Stimulus Package AND thanks to Governor O'Malley, and our state Senators and Delegates, the budget cuts originally proposed for Prince George's schools have been restored and the Geographic Cost of Education Index will be fully funded. This achievement also marked an important alliance between the state's biggest school systems - Prince George's County, Baltimore City and Montgomery County. We hope we can continue to work together to ensure equity and fairness in education funding.

Still, the budget that we voted on last week includes deep cuts - $106m in cuts - that will not be easy for our school system. A year-over-year increase of $70m is required to fully fund the maintenance of the system at its current level, and instead, we will have a $36m decrease. We ask members of the community to bear with us through the difficult process of planning for school consolidation and other resource reductions that may be necessary.

Other school board news includes progress on our Superintendent selection process. We have heard from the community about the characteristics you are seeking in a new superintendent. Based on the community input, the Board developed criteria for the new superintendent, and that is available online at http://www1.pgcps.org/board/ - go to BoardDocs and view the Feb 19 meeting information. The next step is for the Board to interview Interim Superintendent, Dr. William Hite, determine whether his qualifications and experience meet the criteria.

COMMUNITY MEETING - MONDAY, MARCH 9

The Board is beginning its next series of "Take the Board to the Community" meetings, beginning with Monday, March 9 at Parkdale High School. All meetings will begin at 7:00pm - arrive 15 mins early to enjoy a performance of the Parkdale handbell choir and Lyrikal Storm (a poetry slam group) prior to the meeting. The meeting will be an open forum question and answer between the board and community.

A full schedule of community meetings is below. Note - I realize many of you need more advance notice of meetings and I'm not always able to produce the newsletter early enough. Remember that you can sign up for the official school system news by going to www.pgcps.org and click on Subscribe Now in the right-hand side of the home page.

ALL MEETINGS AT 7:00PM

District 2/At-Large
March 9, 2009
Location: Parkdale High School - 6001 Good Luck Rd. - Riverdale, MD 20737

District 3/At-Large
March 23, 2009
Location: Suitland High School
5200 Silver Hill Rd. - District Heights, MD 20747

District 1/At-Large
March 30, 2009
Location: Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School
13725 Briarwood Drive - Laurel, MD 20707

District 4/At-Large
April 20, 2009
Location: Isaac Goudine Middle School
8700 Allentown Road - Fort Washington, MD 20744

District 5/At-Large
April 29, 2009
Location: Marlton Elementary School
8500 Old Colony South - Upper Marlboro, MD 20772

I look forward to seeing you!

To contact me directly, please email Heather.Iliff@pgcps.org.

Sincerely,

Heather Iliff

Board Member, District 2

Prince George's County Public Schools