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"It is time to send OUR message, loud and clear!"

So begins an email from and for Monterey Peninsula Unified School District parents announcing a protest planned for 3pm Friday at Colton Hall. The call to action, sent by Pam Silkwood to a number of MPUSD staffers and parents of children in the district's schools, is aimed at giving an en masse two cents to the MPUSD Board about the 2.5 percent raise it approved for Superintendent Marilyn Shepherd and her staff (reported by the Weekly here).

Joanna Greenshields, who has two children in MPUSD schools, plans on attending and making her voice heard. "We should take a look at how many superintendents across the state have taken pay cuts, or at least had their pay frozen," Greenshields told the Weekly Thursday. "It's breeding teacher discontent. When you have a teacher in front of children who resents being there, how is that good for anybody's child?"

Look for further coverage of the protests from the Weekly tomorrow. In the meantime, here's the full text of the protest announcement:

Are you tired of overcrowded classrooms? Are you tired of the cuts our children are experiencing in schools, day after day, with deeper cuts ever looming with each school year? Are you tired of being told of all the sacrifices your family must continue to make in this current education environment? Are we really all in this together..........? Well, apparently not!!! It seems somebody at the District Office did not get the memo!!! So it is time to send OUR message, loud and clear!!! GIVE THAT MONEY BACK TO OUR SCHOOLS AND OUR CHILDREN.

Please join us Friday May 6 at Colton Hall at 3:00pm.

We will meet then move down to the District Office where we will protest the recent decision by the Board of Trustees to give the Superintendent and her cabinet a 2.5% pay increase every year over the remainder of the contract!

As parents, teachers and concerned members of the community, we must demand accountability at all levels of the administration! This is not the time to be afraid of what will happen if we should dare to speak out! We should be more afraid of what will continue to happen if we don't have the courage to speak out! Don't our children deserve better than this?