Yes it can!

On Saturday, over 100 students and volunteers showed up at the Boathouse at Greenlake to rally for the renewal of Propositions 1 & 2 (the school levies!) These are funds that make-up 23% of the Seattle School district’s operating budget. We’re talking stuff like basic building maintenance and technology upgrades, as well as teacher salaries! Without these levies, the school district would not be able to fund a 6^th period in the school day. Whew, big deal.

Below are a few pictures from young voters in action:

One volunteer and UW student, Rocio Woods, would like to remind us all that this year’s all mail-in election comes at a slight cost to the voters: 44 cents!

“Apathy can undermine our best intentions to ensure that Seattle Public Schools receive the funds that they need for their daily operations and capital expenditures. That’s if we don’t pick up the necessary postage to get our ballots in!”

UW students volunteering on the levy campaign are taking steps to ensure that apathy doesn’t get the best of us—they are passing out stamps on campus. Here they are below phone banking at campaign headquarters:

Don’t forget: tomorrow (Feb. 9^th) is the LAST day to post-mark your ballot for it to count! Your public schools need your support!

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Want to know what students can do to help the Seattle school levies? Well, here’s what we’ve been doing! Several students have given short presentations at a couple different community events this past week to let people know that passing the levy is important to us! We had the ears of the good people at the 46th Legislative District Democrats on January 21^st, presentations to local preschools, at school community meetings and one student is reaching out to the Kenyan Community here in Seattle. A few of us have been volunteering hours from the campaign headquarters by working on translating some of the levy literature into Somali and Spanish.

We’ve also been going behind the scenes with our very own camera team, covering the events where the levy is being highlighted. Our Communications Specialists have been keeping their fingers in motion as well, contacting newspapers and community papers to keep the levies on the forefront of everyone’s mind.

And then there’s phone banking! Nope that’s not where you deposit your phone for safekeeping – it’s all about putting your cell phones to good use! Students have come into the Schools First Headquarters (on 524 Dexter Avenue, N. in Seattle) and joined up with community organizations around the city reminding people that their votes matters! We may have also shown up for the free PIZZA! More phone banks are scheduled so if you want to join in on all the fun send us an e-mail to let us know when you can make it (and how many slices they should plan for)!

The last bit of big news is that Schools First is having a rally! This Saturday (the 6^th) from 12:00 to 1:00pm at Green Lake Boathouse (5900 West Green Lake Way N). Students (as we speak) are hard at work on getting this event planned and off the ground. Come join us and be a part of this student-led rally to get out the vote to renew Seattle’s levies!

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Seattle, are you wondering why you got a ballot in the mail last week? Well, you don’t even have to live in Seattle to have gotten a ballot last week. There are school districts all across Washington state that are doing the same thing Seattle is come February 9th– they are renewing their levies.

Let’s take it back one-step. What’s a levy?

Levies are like loans. Big ones. These are long and short-term chunks o’ change that school districts take out from the constituents in their district to pay for a variety of projects. In most cases, they fund the essentials: textbooks, computers, and things like bathroom tile. In Seattle, they fund those things AND more. Seattle levies fund the entire 6th period of the school day. So… yeah. Kind of a big deal.

Guest blogger Rocio will be keeping us updated on the status of the Seattle Levy campaign (a campaign which she, and 25 other UW students are kindly spending their volunteer hours on). You can read her first post here.

If you weren’t sold earlier on how important it is to renew these two crucial levies, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Seattle has already passed these levies before. We are just renewing them again, as we do every 2-3 years. Also, the ca$h that comes in from the BTA II and the Operations levy make up 23% of the school districts annual budget.

AND. Mayor Mike McGinn said so. So do it. Vote yes, renew the levies.

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Professor Holly Barker, of the UW Anthropology Department, has done it again! She has come up with yet another creative way for students to learn about the empowering work of Anthropology – not by studying an endless stream of theories but by going out into the community and helping to make a difference.

This winter quarter, 26 Applied Anthropology students will be volunteering at Schools First, in partnership with the League of Education Voters, to help get the vote out for the Seattle School Levies (on the ballot February 9^th – make sure that you exercise your right to be counted)!

Just so you know who we – the UW anthro students – are… we are taking part in a workshop class that considers the practical applications of anthropology’s methods and theories to the challenges and research needs of communities and organizations. Our class this quarter will concentrate specifically on the applications of anthropology in education, particularly in educational policy. What are the needs of our public education system? What can citizens do about it? Do policymakers consider the perspectives of young people? Students will monitor and critique current public policy efforts to address the needs of the public schools in Seattle and Washington State. We’re also the ones that get really excited about finding arrowheads in the UW gardens or have chocolate all over our hands from flint-knapping…

But who are these other players involved in this election? Well let me tell you.

Schools First is the campaign organization that works to help pass Seattle School levies. It’s a grassroots, citizen-based organization founded in 1995. Their primary mission is to inform voters about upcoming school levies and to direct efforts toward ensuring their passage.

Then there is (us) the League of Education Voters—who work to improve Washington’s public schools through a grassroots statewide network of advocates.

The last part of this team helping to renew the 2010 levies is you! The voters within the Seattle School District. Look for the ballot on February 9, 2010 to replace two expiring levies for schools.

What’s on the ballot, this Feb. 9^th?

One is a Three-Year Operations Levy that is needed because State and federal funding do not cover the basic needs of high quality education that our children deserve. Seattle school levies fund 23% of the Seattle Public schools operating budget for teachers, librarians, counselors, textbooks, and bilingual & special education specialists.

The second is a Six-Year Capital Levy that replaces an expiring one and provides hundreds of important safety health and maintenance improvements and academic and technology updates to our Seattle schools and grounds.

So there you have all the facts. Students helping people who are helping students!

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