Community Demonstration and Hunger Strike for Education Tuesday June 23 at 12:00 pm In front of the LAUSD Headquarters (333 S. Beaudry Ave. • Los Angeles • CA) Concerned Community Members: Judith Cuauhtemoc, Yolanda Santoyo and Guillermo Suarez The Community will make sure it is heard this Tuesday when the LAUSD board meets to officially decide and announce drastic cuts to the Los Angeles Unified School District. These cuts will have terrible crippling implications to our children's education. We demand that these cuts NOT take effect, especially when federal stimulus funds have been allocated to prevent such cuts. Community organizations, parents, students and Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc have extended the hunger strike and encampament at LAUSD to prevent the further destruction of public education in Los Angeles. We demand a HALT to dramatic class size! We demand a HALT to teacher lay-offs in the LAUSD! We demand that kind Garden NOT be cut! We demand that summer school and after school programs NOT be cut. After 23 days of teacher’s hunger strike, the above mentioned individuals continue to fight against attacks on our children’s education and are standing on this day to demand that the LAUSD restore class sizes to 2008-09 levels and that they use the federal stimulus funds now to retain teachers in the classrooms; to reinstate our children’s Kindergarten, Summer School and After School programs which have been subtracted due to proclaimed "lack of funds". The State of California has chosen to put the burden of this crisis on the children of California. The LAUSD Board of education has decided to balance the budget on the backs of students and teachers in the most under-served areas of Los Angeles, including Downtown, South, and East LA. Additionally, communities of color in Los Angeles will be disproportionately impacted due to the class size increases and the fact that over 50% of pinked-slipped teachers are teachers of color, many of whom have cultural and personal ties to the communities they serve. We are all concerned by the action that we have been forced to take. We know that this action can harm us physically and psychologically. However, what concerns us the most is how the problem of our children has fallen on the deaf ears of LAUSD. We are holding them responsible for the consequences. We believe that a quality public education is a human right, and that for far too long the children of California have suffered from underfunded and low-quality schools. No cuts on education programs! Don't increase class sizes! Better education!