School Board Members and Superintendent Mills,

The decision to eliminate 182 teachers in the Manatee County School system is not an acceptable solution to the financial crisis affecting Manatee County Schools.

We were told by Superintendent Mills that our class sizes are too small, but, in fact, only Broward, Dade, Duval and Marion counties have more PK-3rd grade classes in violation of the Class Size law. Only 6 counties in the state have higher high school class size averages. Only 5 counties suffered larger fines from the state ("class size funding reductions" Feb 15th 2013) for class size violations than Manatee County this year. The data reported by Manatee County to the Florida Department of Education proves that we have the highest class size averages in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida. According to a Harvard study, students in small classes are significantly more likely to attend college and exhibit improvements on other outcomes that will help the community, such as home ownership and retirement savings.

Our teachers promote critical thinking skills, and teach our children to think of the best solution, not just the easiest one. We need our Superintendent to do the same. We would like the School Board to sell vacant school district property, lease office space in the half-empty School Board Building, cut administrative positions and provide incentives for early retirement. We do not want our children's education to be compromised by the elimination of professional educators.

Sign the petition and demand that Superintendent Mills and the School Board of Manatee County develop a better solution to our financial problems.

all data can be found at
http://www.fldoe.org/ClassSize/csavg.asp​

http://www.manateeschools.net/Property_Online/property.html​

http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/STAR.pdf