‘Students, Not Scores’ Support Grows Via Petition

The ideas at the heart of the Comsewogue school district’s ‘Students, Not Scores’ rally continue to resonate with people on Long Island, in New York State and nationally, as petitions in both online and paper formats have collected more than 1,500 signatures since the start of the Aug. 17 rally.

School board trustee Ali Gordon said the petition calls on Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Board of Regents and state lawmakers to change or reject the Common Core national curriculum and state tests that the Comsewogue school district feels hurts children.

“The goal is to get thousands of people advocating for our children’s well being,” Gordon said in an email to Patch. “We know that ‘the powers that be’ aren’t interested in an issue unless the number of people calling for change is undeniable.”

The Comsewogue school district’s involvement in the national issue began when superintendent Dr. Joseph Rella penned a soon-to-be-viral letter that basically said to state officials: Help us with state tests, or remove me from my post.

In an Aug. 24 entry on the Students, Not Scores website, Rella said: “People throughout the country who are at the beginning or in the midst of the Common Core implementation and testing are experiencing exactly the same things as we are.”

Beth Dimino, president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Teachers Association, said that organization has begun a push via Twitter, Facebook and blogs, which she predicts “will continue to see an uptick in people becoming more active politically about this issue on a national level.”

Gordon said there is no specific time frame yet for the petition to be presented, that the online petition would be live “indefinitely,” and that “there’s nothing to stop us from delivering the petition to federal officials as well.”