‘COMMON CORE’ FOES
PACK 2 LOCAL FORUMS
Parents Warn School Board About Atmosphere Of Fear
COOPERSTOWN – Last year, only six families with nine children in all declined to take the state’s Common Core exams in the Cooperstown Central School District.
But if the Cooperstown Central School District had mostly avoided protests about the testing-focused regimen, that abruptly and dramatically changed in the past few days.
On Wednesday, March 4, more than 100 parents and teachers packed the school board meeting in the junior/high school library, where parent Kim Jastremski warned of a “climate of fear” in Cooperstown Elementary, with teachers “afraid to speak the truth about the Common Core to the board.”
Part of her concern, Jastremski said, was the PTA’s decision to withdraw its endorsement of a program she had organized Sunday, March 8, in Village Board for Opt Out CNY to address parents and teachers about how Governor Cuomo plans to use the Common Core to fire failing teachers and close failing schools.
Sunday, New Hartford teachers Jamie and Jessica McNair, representing Opt Out, spoke to a crowd of 70 in the Village Board’s meeting room, urging parents to refuse to allow their children to take Common Core tests next month. “If you deny them access to the test scores,” said Jamie McNair, former five-year president of the New Hartford NYSUT chapter, “the whole thing falls apart.”