Where from here?

First, off, thanks to the staff of Lincoln Heights for hosting a fun happy hour/signing event at The Pike on 747. Never been there before. Think I'll be going back.

Second, coming up this week we have our first public event - Monday night on the sidewalk (we can't be on school grounds but the public sidewalk at the school is fair game) at the PHS Jazz Band Ice Cream Social. To see what the event is like, check out these photos from a couple of years ago. Hopefully it'll give some of our more active/involved parents a chance to get their names on the petition.

Third, Wednesday afternoon we'll be at O'Charley's in Tri-County to see the Glendale folks. It'd be a great chance for any staffers from the other schools - whether they're ones we've already visited or ones we haven't visited yet - to stop by and help us out.

Fourth, turns out that Sharon Woods is all booked for the 21st, but Glendale has a couple of nice parks - Summit and Washington - that would be perfect for our purposes. We'll need a resident of Glendale to get the actual reservation, but I'm thinking that's do-able. PACE had already agreed to foot the bill for the shelter house at Sharon Woods, and the Glendale reservations are even cheaper (free with a deposit) so we should be able to have some food to grill out there. Plus there's space for cornhole and nice playgrounds around. Bring the kids out...have some fun.

What we need from you...

• Talk to everybody in your building to make sure everyone has signed the petitions. If they haven't send 'em our way on Wednesday at O'Charley's.
• If you're at Heritage Hill, Evendale, Stewart, or Woodlawn, we need to know when and where you want us to have the petitions to get your staff signed up. Feel free to make Wednesday's O'Charley's visit a multiple-school event, but if you want one of your own, we need to know soon.
• Start talking up the May 21st event with parents and staffers. We're going to want to get friends, family, EVERYBODY out to sign on that afternoon.

It's been great to get out and see folks from schools that we don't get to visit often. Thanks for everybody at PCMS, PHS, Springdale, and Lincoln Heights especially for getting on board early.

Success: Day 2

Good turnout today from the staff at PCMS as well as a few community folks and PHS teachers who stopped by as well.

Nothing big planned for signing on Thursday, but we'll be back at things on Friday at The Pike in Woodlawn. We'll get started around 4:00 when school lets out, and we'll be welcoming in any community members who want to join us in giving the people of Ohio a chance to make their voices heard about Senate Bill 5.

After Friday, we'll be available next at the PHS Jazz Band Ice Cream Social on Monday evening. Technically, we'll be on the sidewalk encouraging friends and family of Princeton's kids to sign our petitions.

We're still looking for somewhere to hold a community-wide event on May 21st. Sharon Woods has been proposed. Can anybody think of a better place, or should we start looking into a shelter house in Sharon Woods?

Wherever we end up, I'm thinking cornhole, snacks, maybe jarts to keep things interesting?

PS - We noticed today that a surprising number of people didn't know the city for their voter registration. It seems like it should be easy - you have a mailing address, and that's easy enough to remember. It turns out that in a lot of cases, though, your mailing address and voter registration don't always match. One specific example saw a PCMS staffer check online because his mailing address is Symmes Township, but he lives in Sycamore Township. When he checked online, he found that his voter registration is actually listed as being in Loveland.

Take a second and check your voter registration by clicking on the Voter Registration tab at the top before you join us on Friday. It's easy to do and will save you a lot of consternation when you come to sign.

Oustanding work today, folks

We're still counting up the signatures, but we can say with no doubt that Springdale and PHS made today a fine start toward getting the 231,149 signatures that we need state-wide.

The afternoon started at PHS with dozens of staffers clad in their I Helped Make Princeton Excellent shirts (thanks, PACE, for getting those printed, by the way) showing their solidarity and signing the petitions to repeal SB5. We even got a visit and signature from one of our building administrators.

From there we headed to the UDF across the street from Springdale Elementary where nearly the entire Springdale staff found us tucked under shelter from the threatening skies and signed their names to the petitions.

Today was a great show of support, folks, and tomorrow will only be better as we'll be at Princeton Community Middle School's library from 3:15 (if that's the end of the Middle School contract day, it might be 3:30) for an hour.

If anybody from PHS missed their chance today, come on over to PCMS.

If anybody from Springdale missed your chance, come on over to PCMS. We'll wait for you.

If anybody from Glendale or any of the other elementary schools wants to go ahead and sign, come on over.

We're still looking to nail down details of visits to

• Woodlawn and Lincoln Heights (Looks like maybe at The Pike on Friday afternoon)
• Glendale (what about the Friendly Stop so our CO folks can visit, too?)
  
• Heritage Hill (Is there a better option than Crescentville Rec?)
  
• Sharonville (Anybody wanna spend some time in Gower Park?)
• Evendale (Would the church across the way let us hang out for an hour?)
• Stewart (I'm pulling for a shelter house at Francis Recreacres.)

We'll also have the petitions on the sidewalk at the Jazz Band Ice Cream Social at PHS on Monday evening, May 9 if anybody wants to bring some friends in.

We're thinking that an all-Princeton event on the afternoon of May 21 would be a great way to bring the whole district together - friends, families, neighbors, everyone.

Here's my question for you - where is the best public place (park shelter house, rec center, somewhere cheap/free) that we should have a large, district-wide event?

Bonus: Governor Kasich made a proclamation that this week is Public Service Appreciation Week. Seriously.