Cross-posted from a May 27 California State PTA Legislative Alert

We would like to thank the many PTA volunteers who signed the petition to put the “Local Control of Local Classrooms Funding Act” on the statewide ballot in November 2010. We know that many of you worked very hard to collect signatures from your fellow PTA members, neighbors and family members. We truly appreciate your efforts.

Unfortunately, we were not successful in qualifying the initiative for this year’s ballot. We fell far short of the signatures needed. The bulk of the signatures came from San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, Contra Costa County and Los Angeles County.

Despite being unsuccessful in our original goal, this effort did demonstrate that there are thousands of voters in California interested in efforts to support their local schools. We will continue to advocate on this issue. Senator Joe Simitian’s SCA 6 is a bill currently in the Legislature, that would reduce the threshold for local school parcel taxes from the current two-thirds to 55 percent. PTA has a Support position on this bill and will continue to work with the Senator’s office, should the bill move forward.

Once again, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to our many members for their support and tremendous efforts on this issue. Although our advocacy efforts do not always succeed in the short term, we know that they are never wasted, as we are building a base of support for this issue in the longer term.