Students Joined By City Council Members Rally To Save After School Funding

As we reported earlier, Mayor Bloomberg has decided to cut 100% of the city’s after-school youth programs supported by OST2. These cuts will affect 88 programs and almost 11,000 students city-wide, leaving many disenfranchised youth without a safe place to go after school. We’ve been following the efforts of The Educational Alliance to fight the cuts. We were there with them at City Hall on Wednesday for a big rally and press conference.  It was an impressive gathering of over 200 students representing many different programs throughout the city. Several City Council members spoke, and as the crowd grew, television cameras seemed to materialize out of nowhere.  The rally concluded with students from the Educational Alliance handing Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott petitions with almost 5000 signatures of support to reinstate these life-altering programs.