Thanks for your responses and any efforts you made or are making. Sorry for the confusion with signing up, Andrea. As I was making that post the students were updating the http://www.savetheacademy.com website and completely changed the entire thing. I think the changes were for the better and the old site is actually now the blog page. I think you can still go to that page and sign up and post comments but I'll check to be sure.

Just so you know, Julia also paid a visit to the Baerwald Board and read all of your posts and was quite touched by your support. I did update my original post in this thread with the following:

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Representative Vincent Pedone (Worcester) has introduced an amendment to the house budget to continue funding Mass Academy.

WE NEED YOUR HELP CONTACTING LEGISLATORS TO LOBBY SUPPORT FOR THIS AMENDMENT!

You may find a list of legislators by city/town here:

http://www.mass.gov/legis/city_town.htm

E-MAIL AND CALL YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE TODAY!

Personal letters are encouraged in e-mails, but make sure you call and say that you support Representative Pedone's amendment to continue funding the Mass Academy of Math and Science!

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So, now for those of you in Massachusetts (Thank you Smorley!) contacting legislators there is now a very specific request you can make of them "Please support Representative Vincent Pedone's budget amendment!"

Please include that request in your emails and calls and Smorley, if you can pass this along to other folks in Massachusetts that you know that would be great.

There are so many things I could say on this topic when I'm posting here I feel like a babbling idiot so I really appreciate your responses and all of you that took the time to read the post.

This really is just one of those deals that defines the "think global, act local" philosophy. I know I'm speaking to people all over the world on this board but I think that is fine as the students at this school really are bright enough that they may indeed change people's lives all over the world. If you ask any of these students that's what they would tell you they hope to do as well.

It is obviously a tiresome thing to see politicians make the wrong decisions but if you are involved at some level, even just calling and emailing them, people can still make a difference in how things operate. You've got your best chance to do that at the local level.

It is certainly not an easy thing, as even with this effort to save Mass Academy I discovered yesterday that Mr. Pedone's amendment is one of 900! That means that these state legislators now have to review and discuss 900 items and somehow the Mass Academy item will need to stand out in that pile. Some of these proposed amendments are just political sleight of hand to make it appear that a local legislator has taken the time to support continued funding for a local project but are proposed with the intention that the amendment will fail. The politician just ends up looking good to his local constituents for proposing it. That's a sad thing to consider when a worthwhile amendment is sitting in that stack and the clock is ticking. The funding for Mass Academy needs to be approved by the end of July.

I think one positive thing that is coming out of all this is the students at Mass Academy are a huge part of this fight. They are learning that they can make a difference and getting a real lesson in exactly how to do that. It would mean a lot if they win because I think they would carry that victory with them and it would engender the idea that they can effect government when they apply themselves to do so. God knows we need them not just for their beautiful minds but we need people with the heart, guts, and belief that they can fight to change things for the better. Winning this fight would make them all that much stronger I think.

So really, this whole thing may seem small to some folks but thank you so much for doing anything to help, even if it was just reading my post and discussing it with somebody else.

I've always believed we win big victories or suffer tremendous loss through tiny increments. People like to point to one huge game changing event but there are always lots of smaller moves that led to that larger event. It is the smaller moves that we can affect and this is where we need to make a difference first. The fact is this is where and how we can change things. Who knows who may make the call or write the letter that pushes a little fight like this into the win column, it might be you, and maybe winning this small fight means that one of these students creates an alternative energy source that changes our would and saves millions of lives. That might seem like a long shot but I sure think it is one worth betting on.