LI students to rally for education funding

Students planning to attend education rallies in Albany and on Long Island this week say they want lawmakers to restore funding that could be used to bring back vital programs in their schools.

Darlina Sanchez, 17 and an aspiring documentarian from Central Islip High School, is headed to the statehouse Wednesday for "Education Lobby Day" to ask for money for full-day prekindergarten and kindergarten.

She said cuts to these programs have had unintended consequences: Sanchez has missed roughly four days of school to baby-sit her brother, Daniel, 4, whose pre-K program was cut to a half-day. It pains her mother to ask her, but with limited funds, the family has no choice.

"It's a full day of school that I'm missing," Sanchez said. "Who knows what I could have been learning. The next day I have to catch up."

The high school junior said she's also concerned about what Daniel is missing.

"You learn the most important things in pre-K and kindergarten, things you take with you for the rest of your life," she said. "It's one of the first times you have to interact with people you don't know -- without your parents. I don't think that should be cut short for anything."

Sanchez is among educators, parents and students headed to Albany to press for more state aid for public schools, beyond the $805 million for the 2012-13 school year proposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Monday, the state Senate and Assembly, as expected, restored $200 million of that total to the state's general funding of school aid. Cuomo initially had proposed that the money be distributed as competitive grants to districts, but had signaled a willingness to compromise. Details of how the money will be distributed to individual districts remain to be settled by the state's April 1 budget deadline.

Daniela Cardenas, 13 and an eighth-grader at Bay Shore Middle School, also is passionate about restoring full-day prekindergarten and kindergarten.

Cardenas, who also is planning to go on the Albany lobbying trip, moved to the United States from Venezuela when she was 4 years old and said such early programs were critical to her learning a new language. "If kids are being deprived of that, I don't think that's right," she said.

Cuts elsewhere in the district could cause her to miss out on opportunities that would make her a stronger candidate for college, she said. Cardenas wants to study veterinary sciences and earn a music degree. She's interested in New York University.

"Right now, at this age, we have to be exposed to as many things as possible," she said.

"If we are getting cuts . . . we are not experiencing what we are supposed to have."

Cardenas said she'll likely attend another education rally, this one scheduled for noon Sunday outside the state government complex in Hauppauge. Bonnie Buckley, 49 and a parent of two children in the East Islip school district, organized the rally using Facebook.

Buckley has many concerns about education, but wants the state money that Cuomo had proposed be awarded as competitive grants to be given to districts as general state aid, as the Legislature's budget bills now provide.

"You can't divert funds from school districts and create a competitive grant process," Buckley said. "I think it's careless mismanagement on his part."

With John Hildebrand