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Schools

Mount To Host Advocacy Training For Catholic School Parents

Meeting at Mount St. Charles will help parents learn how to advocate for funding for non-public schools.

Mount St. Charles Academy will host an advocacy training event Wednesday evening, April 27, for parents of Catholic school students in Rhode Island concerned about proposed cuts in the state’s budget.

The budget changes were explained in a letter sent earlier this month by Catholic Schools of Rhode Island Superintendent Daniel J. Ferris. Proposed for elimination is the state’s long-standing textbook loan program. The program allows non-public school students to use assigned textbooks without purchasing them. Also causing concern are rumors that the state’s funding for non-public school student transportation could be in jeopardy.

Superintendent Ferris’s letter outlined the proposed changes and invited parents to participate in one of the three meetings scheduled this week. In addition to Wednesday night’s meeting at , LaSalle Academy will host parents on Thursday evening, April 28. The Prout School in Wakefield hosted the first meeting on Tuesday night.

The advocacy training at The Prout School was attended by a modest crowd of about a dozen parents and another half-dozen principals of area non-public schools. Advocacy Solutions of Providence directed the brief training, which was hosted by Edward Bastia, Business Administrator of the Catholic School Office, and Prout School principal Gary Delneo.

Advocacy Solutions, a public affairs firm, or lobbyist, gave attendees a brief overview of the issues and guided them through the use of the Legislative Action Center attached to the website of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference. The page allows users to identify their elected officials, submit form letters, and prepare letters to the editors at their local newspapers.

In their remarks, Advocacy Solutions President Francis X. McMahon, Esq. and colleague Christopher Hunter emphasized the importance of the programs that make non-public school education accessible to Rhode Island students. “Rhode Island Catholic schools take the burden off Rhode Island public schools,” said Hunter. Without programs like the textbook loan program, continued Hunter, “it’s more difficult for Catholic schools to offer tuition assistance.” They also acknowledged Governor Lincoln Chafee’s role in the proposed change, with McMahon defining the Governor as “lukewarm” toward the Rhode Island Scholarship Tax Credit program and encouraging attendees to remember the proposed budget cuts when the Governor faces reelection.

The first-term Independent has faced broad challenges in his new office as the state struggles to close budget shortfalls in excess of $300 million. The former Republican Senator was endorsed during his campaign by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, both teachers’ unions. McMahon pointed toward these organizations during the training, claiming that non-public schools “are under constant assault” from the unions, wondering aloud whether their maneuvers were “worth it to protect their pensions” and encouraging advocates to act, as “no one really is opposing us except...the N.E.A. and the A.F.T.”

McMahon, a Special Counsel and Deputy Chief of Staff in the administration of Governor Bruce Sundlun, also stressed the efficacy of letters and phone calls to their legislators, sharing behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the cumulative effect of the phone calls, letters, and messages that result from grassroots campaigns.

The advocacy training at Mount St. Charles Academy will begin at 7 p.m.

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