Ansonia’s BOE should focus on children’s education, not budget

As president of the Valley branch of the oldest civil rights organization in which many have fought for the rights to get a decent and well-deserved education, it's disheartening to watch our leaders engaged in issues around education with our children caught in the middle.

I have spoken with Mayor Cassetti and he assured me the students would not be impacted by this and will complete their full mandatory 180 days of school and I was glad to hear that. I say we must do better.

We are going to have debates and differences of opinion — that’s life and it is good for growth and development. What we must stop doing is putting our children up as sacrifices during our challenging times. As adults, we realize the importance of obtaining a high school diploma. If we continue to trivialize and make education appear expendable to our children, they will never value it.

More importantly, our children need to be in school every day. In reviewing school numbers for Ansonia, it is clear that we are not meeting the basic educational needs of our children in the time we are already allotted, let alone with entertaining cutting hours.

Ansonia’s school enrollment is currently about 2,350 students; of those students, approximately 20 percent are black students; 40 percent are Hispanic students and 70 percent of those students receive reduced lunch. The numbers are important because we are talking about a majority of students that already come from challenging environments. The school system is supposed to be the place where they can come to level an uneven playing field.

We are not providing them with that opportunity.

Our SBAC scores reflect that only approximately 30 percent of our kids are reading on grade level and only 20 percent of our kids are doing math on grade level.

Enough. Our children deserve better, our community as a whole deserves better. Taking away or delegitimizing the importance of education because of personality conflicts or budgetary issues contributes to a multitude of problems — especially the school to prison pipeline.

Today, I issue another challenge for all of us, black, white, other, rich, poor or in the middle, parents, teachers, community leaders and churches; and the village.

Let’s own our children’s future starting with their education. Let’s let this issue bring us together to advocate for adequate funding that cannot be taken away whenever someone is so moved to do so. Let’s agree that starting today, we will not support any type of games with or manipulation of money that affects our children’s education.

We need to do right by our children — no more talk about how much you have funded education — no personal attacks — this is about our children and our community.

We need to do what is right... and most times, what is right costs money. We need to share the burden and make sure our children have a solid foundation to be successful. The time is now — otherwise we will all pay the price down the road.

I believe all taxpayers and parents want their children to be successful and the best way is to hold those in power accountable for providing our children a quality education. Let your voices be heard at each and every meeting, at each and every opportunity you have. Accept this challenge and let’s band together in record numbers to show that we will not place money or anything else above the best interest of our children.