Announcing UNITED PARENTS OF CULVER CITY,
the first-ever, District-wide, democratically elected policy and political group for Culver City parents.
Please join us for our kickoff event on Thursday, May 24, 7-9 p.m.
Come meet the founding members of United Parents of Culver City. Get to know your new student advocacy group for Culver City parents, and get involved.
Parents of Culver City are working together like never before, across all schools, to increase the role of parents in education policy. We strive to be effective parent leaders who join together in a unified voice.
The inaugural meeting, two weeks from last night, will be at a private residence, 4443 S. Purdue Ave., Culver City 90230.
Format : The first hour, from 7 o’clock until 8, will be devoted to open mingling/socializing. From 8 o’clock to 9: A members-only meeting .
Website: http://www.UnitedParentsCulverCity.com
RSVP: http://unitedparentsculvercity.com/join-us/
Why United Parents of Culver City? –
While PTA and booster clubs do great jobs, they are limited by internal rules from certain types of advocacy. We need a permanent organization – the United Parents of Culver City (UPCC)– that raises awareness of the issues facing our schools… and then raises and spends money to elect the best leaders for leadership in our district and our city. Parents– through UPCC’s political action committee aka PAC– need to shape School Board elections to keep politicians away. We need to work together to let each other know the best practices and ideas from our own school sites so we can all benefit from the best of CCUSD. Finally, UPCC and its PAC will ensure that Culver City’s leaders and council members make our city the best possible one for families and kids.
The Issue That Brought Us Together –
The School Board remains paralyzed by what should be an easy issue: supporting parents’ rights to support and fund our school programs that the District does not provide and in many cases never has provided. For many of us, a great part of the 2011-2012 school year has been spent writing letters, lending our names to the Parents Have Rights Petition (1, 177 signers!), attending school board meetings and advocating for these rights. Due to inaction and “political” considerations — the majority of our School Board let this issue devolve into a mess.
While parts of the issue have begun to be hammered out, the status of our booster clubs and parent groups remain unresolved. We have joined together because we realized that no matter which school our children attend, our issues and concerns remain the same.
What Parents Finally Learned – Prior School Boards failed to spend taxpayer-authorized bond money to benefit students in a timely manner Some members of this School Board are having a hard time understanding and advocating for parent volunteer groups. It’s clear that we need our own organization to advocate for our views and the interests of our children. We are stronger together. Click here for issues that are important to us
This Is What Parent Empowerment Looks Like –
United Parents of Culver City members at each Culver City school will select parent members to represent them. Click here to read about our structure
Our Leadership – Our elections will be held annually starting next January. Until then, UPCC’s interim President is Steve Levin from Farragut. The interim President of its PAC is Scott Kecken from La Ballona. Certain interim leadership positions still are available. Click here to read about our founding members
We hope that you'll check out United Parents of Culver City and be an even more effective leader in your child's education.
Please feel free to contact us. Ask any questions. We hope to see you on Thursday, May 24, at 7 o’clock. This is exciting!
Sincerely,
Culver City Parents
Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, Scott McVarish, Steve Levin, Scott Kecken, Paul Blechner, Anne Burke, Dan O'Brien, Bryan Tjomsland, Tom Crunk, and Jenny Manriquez, Beverly O'Brien.
