Save Our Schools Coalition
Press release for press conference
January 5, 2007

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Contact: Lee Glazer 202-521-0377 or 202-543-5456
info@saveourschoolsdc.org

Community Activists Remind Mayor Fenty of the People’s Mandate

Save Our Schools Coalition to Hold People's Press Conference at Fenty's Inaugural Ball

What: Save Our Schools Coalition press conference
Where: Front of the Washington Convention Center
When: Saturday January 6, 6:00 pm, one hour before the start of Mayor Fenty’s inaugural ball

The Save Our Schools Coalition, an all-volunteer group of parents, students, teachers, trade unionists, and community activists, will hold a press conference before the start of Mayor Adrian Fenty's inaugural ball. The press conference will lay out a people's action agenda for affordable housing, health care, and public education and remind Mr. Fenty and other newly elected officials that their victory was a people's mandate for change. In addition, the Coalition will demand that Mr. Fenty respect our right to a fully elected school board, support a moratorium on new and expansion charter schools, and protect our hard-won school modernization money from outside contractors and others seeking to privatize our public schools.

"DC voters supported Adrian Fenty because we thought that he would stand up for longtime residents, rebuild our traditional public schools, and stem the tide of gentrification and displacement," declared Coalition member and tireless Fenty campaign volunteer, LeRoy Hall. "A vote for Adrian Fenty was a vote against rampant development and corporate takeover. It was a vote against the hold that the Federal City Council, an invitation-only group of rich business people, has had on DC politics since its founding in 1954 by the Washington Post's Graham family," he added.

The press conference will call attention to the historic complicity between our elected officials and the Federal City Council – and the devastating effects of this relationship on poor communities of color. During the Williams administration, the FCC worked with local officials and the US Congress to close DC General Hospital and to privatize our neglected public school system by encouraging the proliferation of unaccountable charter schools.

According to Crystal Sylvia, a Ward 4 voter and social worker for DC Public Schools, "There is a growing sense of alarm among Fenty's grassroots base that he is becoming too influenced by the Federal City Council, which has acted as a sort of shadow government in DC. Even before taking office, Adrian Fenty has been meeting behind the scenes with the FCC and hiring their people—Neil Albert and Victor Reinoso, just to name two."

"We elected Fenty, not the FCC! We're calling on residents throughout the city to attend the press conference and help us get our people's agenda back on the table," she added.