Putting Our Children First

Putting Our Children First:
A New Vision for Reclaiming Richmond Public Schools

On March 17, a judge placed an injunction on the Wilder Administration, preventing them from forcibly evicting the school board. It is disheartening to witness the political posturing that the current Mayor and his administration have taken against Richmond City Public Schools. I know that for many residents it is very discouraging to see the Mayor focus his time and energy on evicting the School Board out of City Hall, and that he has not put the same type of emphasis on finding solutions to provide an excellent education to all students that enter RPS. And despite the judge's original ruling against the eviction, the Mayor continues to waste taxpayers' money by filing appeal after appeal on what is amounting to be a frivolous law suit.

Situations like this, reiterate my point that the City needs to move in a new direction. I believe that many residents are looking for a change in the way that government is run. They are looking for more cooperation between the Mayor's office, the City Council, and the School Board to ensure that every student is given a fair chance to matriculate and graduate with the tools necessary to have a productive and successful life. They need solutions rather than strife.

During my years of service to the City, I have sought to produce the type of changes that were needed to transform RPS into a world-class educational system. As a member of the City Council, I chaired the education committee; voted to lease space within City Hall for the school administration; and pushed to have a citywide youth commission so we could engage our youth with positive programs and activities. I also established a tutoring and mentoring program for City employees to mentor RPS students. Every RPS student that needs a mentor should have access to one. Equally as important is that they have the chance to be exposed to opportunities outside of their everyday life experiences.

As a member of the school board, I brought my business experience to school management issues by making sure the school superintendent had a performance based contract that tied compensation to measurable results. I also pushed for the implementation of living wages for school employees; the hiring of 294 new teachers city-wide; improvements of three school facilities in the 8th district; and increased resources to support a vocational education program.

I believe that these are the types of solutions parents, teachers, and students are looking for. When it comes to our children's education, we need to shift our focus from divisive politics and pay more attention to providing positive and success-building opportunities for our students.

As Mayor, I will make a commitment to Governor Kaine's pre-K initiative. In today's society, children are gaining knowledge at an amazing rate. Therefore, it is important that they are afforded a high quality education from day one. This is our challenge - one that I will gladly accept as your Mayor. As we move forward, this means ensuring that as our children enter kindergarten capable of functioning and competing at an age appropriate level. Today's children are entering kindergarten already possessing basics skills set like command of the ABC's and 123's, - they can read basic words. They are interacting with computers or computer based systems, like DVD players, play stations, and IPODS long before they enter a school setting. Today's technology dictates that children are better prepared or suffer the consequences. Our challenge is to prepare them to be the leaders of tomorrow's technological developments.

We need to ensure that we have enough teachers in the classroom and technological resources allocated to guide those children who enter pre-K to completing the 12th grade. In order to accomplish this goal, we will need to develop and execute a plan that is focused, measurable, achievable and specifically geared toward moving RPS forward.

Our city is becoming more diverse as is our nation. Our city must be prepared to embrace this change. As your Mayor, I will give strong emphasis to provisions for bi-lingual education. This will assist in giving our children a competitive advantage beyond graduation and a better world view of tomorrow.

Excellence in the classroom is just one part of the solution; there are still other areas of improvement. As Mayor, I will put more resources in our Parks & Recreation departments, after-school programs, and vocational education programs. I will encourage local business and corporation to take a vested interest in our youth. This is not to say that I don't commend those local businesses that already take an active role in the education of our youth, but I believe more can be done!

I have a vision that will reclaim our schools and bring about change for our students. However, it will not come to fruition without your support and the support of our elected officials. We must have better collaboration with school administrators, teachers, parents and most importantly students. They all must be included if we are to cultivate schools that are "models of excellence" in public education throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Finally, I am running for Mayor of Richmond to bring a new voice, a new choice of next generation leadership to City Hall. I am asking for your vote.