Oct. 20, 2020

We want to remind you about the election taking place on November 3; information on voting sites is here, including where you can vote early from October 24 through November 1, 2020. As many have said, this could be the most important election of our lifetimes.

We urge you to vote for Joe Biden for President. He would triple funding for Title one programs for our neediest schools, more than double special education funding, and deliver an aggressive infrastructure plan that would help build and modernize more NYC public schools, which are badly overcrowded and need upgrading for internet and ventilation systems, as we’ve learned during the COVID crisis.

Meanwhile, the education agenda of Donald Trump and his Education Secretary Betsy Devos has been focused primarily on undermining and privatizing public schools, through the expansion of charter schools and vouchers.

We also encourage you to vote to re-elect Andrew Gournades for State Senate if you reside in his district, which includes the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, Gravesend and parts of Sheepshead Bay, Borough Park and Midwood.

Senator Gournades has introduced bills to teach climate change in the schools, to mandate that every school have at least one counselor, and to require a social worker in every school.  He has also advocated for the state to provide more than a billion dollars still owed NYC public schools, and has opposed lifting the cap on charter schools. Meanwhile, his Republican opponent, Vito Bruno, says nothing about education or schools on his campaign website.

As you might have read, billionaire Ron Lauder is spending four million dollars to defeat Gournades and five other Democrats running for State Senate. We strongly believe that we need to keep and strengthen the progressive majority in the State Senate if our public schools are ever going to receive their fair share of education funding from the state.

That’s why we support Andrew Gournades for re-election, and hope you will too.

Sincerely yours,

NYC Kids PAC