Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, asks you for your help. The state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill to require reduced class sizes in NYC. Governor Hochul has not sign it yet. If she doesn’t sign within 39 days, it’s a “pocket veto.” At the same time, NYC Mayor Eric Adams plans to cut the budget for schools. This would certainly make class size reduction impossible. Act now!

On June 3, the NY State Legislature passed S09460/ A10498, a long-needed bill to require NYC to lower class sizes, by a vote of 147 to 2 in the State Assembly and 59 to 4 in the State Senate. It calls for class size caps to be phased in over five years in all New York City public schools, whose students have long struggled from being jammed into the largest class sizes in the state.

Instead of abiding by the intent of this bill, Mayor Adams and the City Council agreed to a budget that will cut school budgets by at least $215 million, making it likely that class sizes will increase rather than decrease next fall.

Please sign this petition to Gov. Hochul to sign the class size bill as soon as possible, so that NYC schools can get on the right track towards improving learning conditions rather than undermining them. The petition is co-sponsored by Class Size Matters, the Alliance for Quality Education, NYC Kids PAC and the Education Council Consortium.