Rally Against Education Cuts at SCCC
Thursday, March 12
Rally Begins at 2:00 PM at the South Plaza
Enter the Board of Trustees Meeting at 3:00 PM
Seattle Central Community College
Here is the schedule:
2:00-2:40 Speakers TBA (students and faculty)
2:40-3:00 Open Mike
3:00-3:?? Enter the Broadway Performance Hall and gather in the Conference Room where the Board of Trustees meeting is located
"...Chancellor Wakefield recently sent out an email to faculty stating that due to unexpectedly high enrollment a total of $700,000 dollars will be dispersed to Central, North, and South Seattle Community Colleges. Each college will receive roughly one-third of the total based on how many full time students are enrolled at each college. For Central, this would cover the cut to instruction [quote copied from below]."
Fellow students and faculty,
Yesterday Campus President Mildred Ollée held a one hour long "forum" regarding budget cuts. Over 70 people packed the room and many had to stand due to lack of seating. Ollée spent the first 40 minutes on her presentation. She only gave us an hour yet she spent 40 minutes of that hour going on and on about how she has no power to reverse the decision to cut instruction by $200,000 for the Spring quarter of 2009. As the saying goes, the buck stops here. Her decision to cut 40 classes results in leaving 100's of students without the classes they need to graduate is absolutely unacceptable!
During the "forum" Ollée said that all classes that were cut have been replaced with either online, video, or correspondence classes. I'm not going to call Ollée a liar, but this simply isn't true. If you take a look at the online Spring 2009 schedule, there you will not find a single 200 level Spanish course. They were all completely cut. The students were left completely high and dry!
When Ollée finally gave us a chance to speak, a student brought up Ollée's mistake. I then commented on administrations ballooning salaries stating that based on the reported 2007 payroll, a 10% cut to full time administrators would easily pay for the $200,000 cut to instruction. Ollée interrupted me many times telling me that a forum is no place for comments and she expects students to raise questions instead. When I tried to ask her why they have decided to cut instruction when their own budget report released last December shows that the school has over $14,000,000 in net assets, she interrupted me declaring "don't go there!" and called me "disrespectful". The students and faculty have done everything within our power to be respectful and administration hasn't reciprocated.
Whats disrespectful is cutting our classes that are required for our transfer! Whats disrespectful is making these decisions behind closed doors without inviting students and faculty to ensure that our academic future would not be threatened!
Chancellor Wakefield, who was recently hired and has an annual salary that exceeds $100,000, recently sent out an email to faculty stating that due to unexpectedly high enrollment $700,000 dollars will be dispersed to Central, North, and South Seattle Community Colleges as an "educational stimulus". Each college will receive roughly one-third of the total. The final decision as to how much each college will receive is based on how many full time students are enrolled at each college. For Central, this would cover the cut to instruction.
Seattle Central does not need to cut its instructional budget! The chancellor sent this out yesterday, March 9, at about 5:30 pm. Restore our classes now!
I have received word that dozens of students will be joining us from the South campus and many from the North campus as well. The coalition calls for dozens more from North and South! The coalition calls for 75+ from Central! The coalition calls for 100+ to join our rally, speak up at the open mike, and enter the Board of Trustees meeting to restore our classes now!
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.
Sincerely,
James Bichler
SCCC Student
stopthecutssccc@gmail.com
