Students tell Schwarzenegger:
'Meet demands or we'll be back'
By Tahnee Stair
Sacramento, Calif.
On April 16, some 50 students, parents and
teachers from San Pablo, Calif., in the West Contra Costa
Unified School District completed a 70-mile, eight-day march
from the Bay area to the State Capitol in Sacramento. The
youngest participants were 10 years old.
Marchers had three demands: equalize school funding across
the state, the state must fully fund Proposition 98, and cancel
West Contra Costa School District's debt, which it spends $1.8
million repaying each year.
Proposition 98, passed by voters, prohibits cutting K-14
educational funding; if cuts take place under special
circumstan ces, this restores the cuts the following year. The
West Contra Costa School district is $16.8 million in debt, and
has voted to entirely cut school libraries, athletic programs,
counselors, and elementary music programs.
On the way to Sacramento, the march ers had gone by
Vacaville State Prison and rallied nearby. Two hundred
supporters rallied outside the Capitol when the
grassroots-organized march reached Sacramento.
To show solidarity, the anti-war ANSWER Coalition
participated in the rally and mobilized support. Many rally
participants enthusiastically waved signs that read, "Send kids
to school, not war" and "Money for education, not
occupation."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to meet with the young
marchers, their voices now hoarse from chanting, bodies aching
and feet blistered. He did manage to take time to step outside
his office and shake hands with students whose schools could
afford field trips to the Capitol in school buses while those
who marched 70 miles were outside.
When a march organizer called for all those who could to go
inside the Capitol, police shut the doors. In a brief but
militant stand-off, students pounded on the doors chanting, "No
education, no peace" and, "Let us in." After negotiations,
demonstrators eventually formed a single-file line to enter the
Capitol.
One hundred chanting protesters crowded the hallway outside
Schwarze negger's office. Neither Schwarzenegger nor any other
elected official in the Capitol met with them.
Eventually one representative was let in to the governor's
office to deliver the protesters' demands to the governor's
director of constituent affairs. Students said that if their
demands are not met, "We'll be back."
Reprinted from the April 29, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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