Youth ROC Organizers Ready to
Fight for Reform
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Reggie Walker for Milwaukee’s Rufus
King High School and Alcyica Kender from
Germantown High School discuss possible
questions for the What’s Going
Down in Our Schools student survey. |
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Brittany Cullin from Riverside
High School and Kristina Worzalla from Bradley
Tech High School discuss how budget cuts
have impacted their schools. |
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Youth Reclaiming Our Communities is a coalition of students
from throughout Wisconsin cutting across district, class,
and racial lines fighting for a quality public education.
On October 2, high school students from Youth ROC’s
organizing team took the first step in engaging their peers
on school funding reform.
Fifteen youth organizers attended a day long retreat focused
on educating students on different school funding issues and
developing concrete plans and a course of action for the upcoming
year.
The students also took time to discuss their frustrations
with endless budget cuts, higher student fees, and rising
class sizes.
“Every year the fees go up,” said Brandon McCoy-Perry
a senior at Milwaukee’s Rufus King high school. “We
pay fees for sports, for textbooks in our advanced classes,
even for being a senior. Even with all the fees we pay our
sports teams can’t afford new equipment or uniforms,
our textbooks are old, and our class sizes are out of control.
Something has to change.”
Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students were surprised to
learn that suburban students are also being affected by budget
cuts.
“I always thought that the suburbs had so much money,”
said Brittany Cullin from Milwaukee’s Riverside high
school. “You know, the stereotype is that they have
Taco Bell and Burger King in their cafeteria and have all
these classes that we don’t. To hear that they are struggling
too made me realize just how big this problem is.”
Germantown student Alycia Kender added, “It’s
a common misconception that everything is fine and dandy in
the suburbs, but that’s just not the case. Our schools
are facing budget cuts just like everywhere else. We tried
to pass a referendum but it failed, like 95% of all referendums
do. The room where our choir practices is unsafe, we are cutting
school clubs, our class sizes are getting bigger, and our
teachers are working without contracts. As students, whether
we are in the suburbs or the city we are affected by this
issue. That’s why it’s so important that we unite
and bring a unified voice to fight for reform.”
The youth organizers decided that the first step to raising
awareness about the funding crisis is to gather the voices
of the students in their schools. At the retreat, students
designed a survey that would assess each of their schools
needs. Over the next two months Youth ROC members will survey
students in their individual schools. The goal is to find
out how budget cuts are affecting the quality of education.
Then they will compile a report and distribute it to the students,
teachers and parents in each school community.
“It’s about time students got involved in this
issue,” said Kristina Worzalla a student at Bradley
Tech high school in Milwaukee. “Everyone has a stake
in the quality of public education, and students need to be
organized and take an active role. We can’t just leave
it up to parents and teachers, we have to join them. It’s
our future that’s at stake.”
If you would like to distribute the student survey in your
school, or become a member of Youth ROC please contact Jennifer
Epps at 414-384-9094 or on her cell phone at 608-215-9638.
Jennifer can also be reached at jepps@wisconsinsfuture.org.
Learn
more about Youth ROC or request a school funding presentation
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