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Eau Claire’s ‘Save Our Schools’ postcard leads to call from Arne Duncan
Posted: 8/19/2009 10:36:24 AM
When faced with even more cuts in their school budgets, some Eau Claire teachers met the problem by thinking that one person could make a difference. And they received a call from the U.S. secretary of education for their efforts.
By telling their stories through postcards, teachers, support staff, school district administration and community members spent an hour after work every day during the last 10 days of school writing anecdotes of what they saw in the classroom.
The postcard effort, named “Save Our Schools,” led to some high visibility when teacher Chris Hambuch-Boyle presented one to Education Secretary Arne Duncan during the NEA Representative Assembly in San Diego this summer. Hambuch-Boyle put her cell phone number one of the cards she presented to Duncan, and he later dialed her up (on August 14) to follow up.
“The screen on my phone said ‘restricted number’ and he just said, ‘Hi Chris, this is Arnie Duncan.’ I almost died,” said Hambuch-Boyle, vice president of Eau Claire Association of Educators.
Duncan and Hambuch-Boyle talked about Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle’s efforts on school funding reform and National Board Certification. Hambuch-Boyle then followed up with an e-mail to Duncan about school funding woes in Eau Claire.
“It shows what one postcard can do,” she added.
The “Save Our Schools” initiative created 300 postcards, with tales of increased class sizes and laid-off peers.
“Eau Claire is in a very tough situation,” Hambuch-Boyle said, detailing the $30 million in cuts the district has faced in the last six years. “We came to the conclusion that if we wanted to have an influence, we had to connect with our legislators.”
“A lot of them had to do with the massive cuts we’ve had here in Eau Claire,” Hambuch-Boyle added. “We can continue to cut, but until we fix school funding, the problem will always be there.”
Ron Martin, president of Eau Claire Association of Educators, said the campaign’s organizers wanted a “proactive” and “positive” approach to reform school funding.
“Our state legislators needed to hear from us,” said Ron Martin, president of Eau Claire Association of Educators. “This is our cry for help. We’re asking, ‘Help us We’re sinking. We’re the Titanic. We need a life jacket.’”
Based on that “sinking” feeling, the effort was coined “Save Our Schools,” and a logo was designed to invoke a life jacket. Martin said the postcard-writers wanted to be proactive and positive, finding a solution to school funding and advocating for it.
“Kids are not going to have the same opportunities kids before them had,” Martin said. “This is happening because the school funding formula is broken.”
When the district’s superintendent put into one of his reports to the school board that he “carded” Congressman Ron Kind, the term stuck and legislators from around the Eau Claire area soon were being “carded.” In addition to Duncan, Hambuch-Boyle also “carded” Jim Doyle during a visit to the area.
Hambuch-Boyle said the postcard-writing will continue this year, with a focus on sending them to residents in the Eau Claire area.
“We won’t let it die,” she said.
