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Dear BMUST Brothers and Sisters, This article was shared at the Fall NYSUT Leadership Conference I attended this past Saturday. I think it does an excellent job explaining why union membership is vital to us in education. I hope you find it to be interesting and keep the sentiments expressed upmost in your thoughts once the campaigns from organizations to encourage members to drop their union membership kick into high gear. It's going to happen and we must be prepared. In solidarity, Mark 
Dear BMUST Members,
Thanks to all who participated in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk this year. The temperature was a bit cool, but it did not deter us from participating in this worthwhile event. All donations will be sent to the American Cancer Society to aid their research and programs for breast cancer patients. Once again, thank you for your generous support and commitment to this worthy cause. Sincerely, Bruce Reed BMUST Public Relations Please see the attached flyer regarding the FREE conference NYSUT is offering to members in the first five years of their career. If you are interested in attending, please contact the BMUST office to register, before November 29. Breakfast and Lunch will be served and a Cocktail Reception will conclude the conference.
Meg Hirsch9:41 AM (4 hours ago) to bcc: me IMPORTANT: Open enrollment is from November 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018! Please see the attached memo and forms regarding Open Enrollment.
Twelve years ago, the NYS Court of Appeals ordered the State to make good on the promise of its Constitution to provide each of its children with a “sound basic education”. The Foundation Aid formula, created by the State, was borne out of the mandate from the Court to address disparities in student needs from one district to another by providing more funding to districts with higher numbers of students in-need to ensure that all receive a sound basic education.
Unfortunately, New York hasn’t abided by the court order and has all but abandoned distributing funding based on its own formula. The result: Long Island school districts are owed $871 million for the current school year alone. The funding shortfall is even more stark for the ten predominantly minority districts who are owed more than half that total. Westbury is owed $41 million from last year and another $37 million for this year. The State’s ten-year record of consistently underfunding certain school districts has been devastating to black and Latino communities and can no longer be tolerated. Eighty percent of predominantly minority school districts have been underfunded for over a decade. Minority districts are three times as likely to be underfunded as other districts. We cannot let this happen any longer. Because the last ten years have undermined our confidence that the State will do the right thing unless action is taken, the Westbury School Board is filing a Complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The Complaint asserts that New York, the Excelsior State, is in violation of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its inequitable distribution of financial aid. The Office of Civil Rights has the authority to enjoin the State from distributing educational aid in a discriminatory manner. We expect it will live up to its mandate, even if the State won’t. We are not asking for some new thing from the State. We are simply asking the State to do what we teach our children to do: Keep your promise! We owe that much to our students. Children who were in first grade in 2006 when this decision was passed graduated in 2018. That’s an entire generation of students who slipped through the cracks. We steadfastly refuse to let that happen to our next generation. Join the fight to make it right! Please join us for a press conference/rally on the steps of the Supreme Court in Mineola on Tuesday, October 23 at 11:30! We are stronger together! You can also join the fight to make it right by signing the attached letter and returning it to the Westbury School District, 2 Hitchcock Lane, Westbury, NY 11590 BMUST will be participating in the phone banks at the NYSUT office (1000 Woodbury Road Suite 214, Woodbury) on Tuesday, October 23, from 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm.
If you would like to help out at the phone banks please email Meg in our office (bmustsecretary@gmail.com) as soon as possible. Thank you. In solidarity, Mark If you have experienced a life change and would like to update your Designation of Beneficiary form, please print the attached document and submit to the BMUST Office (Central). Please be sure to sign the bottom of the second page.
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