Sharon El-Amin distinguished herself at a
Monday, 15 October, forum held at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis
for candidates for the two contested At-Large Minneapolis Public Schools Board
of Education. El-Amin conveyed a very strong sense of sincere empathy in her
responses to poignant testimonies offered by four speakers, who directed
pertinent questions to the seats to be decided by voters on 6 November. The
vent was organized by Greg King and others of the Isaiah Education Equity group,
in association with Simpson Housing Services, Phyllis Wheatley Community
Center, Minnesota Immigrant Movement, and the Welcome Equity Parent Committee
of Hale School (Minneapolis).
That format involved four testimonies that
challenged the candidates to explain how staff at the Minneapolis Public
Schools (MPS) can respond more empathetically and effectively to students and
families in the future.
The first testimony came from a young single
mother who has been in unstable housing but does not meet requirements for
classification as Homeless Highly Mobile (HHM), which provides critical
flexible transportation services to meet the needs of parents with children who
are constantly on the move and could be departing for school from any number of
places at a given time. This parent told a frightening story of her very
young child having to negotiate very confusing bus routes and schedules with
little assistance from school personnel. Simpson Housing Services
interceded and life for this mother and child is now much better, but the
experience of her child being lost and confused in the absence of empathetic
and responsive action from staff at MPS Homeless Highly Mobile lingers in her
consciousness.
The second testimony came from a parent
(representing Friendship Academy, a church-run charter school that her youngest
child attends) whose oldest child has had much difficulty within the
Minneapolis Public Schools getting knowledgeable, professional, and empathetic
attention in coping with her narcolepsy. Her tale conveyed a strong sense
of special education staff having very little knowledge of this condition,
little willingness to learn, and of a mother having to take the lead in
educating staff at several schools, drawing upon huge stores of emotional reserves
to summon the energy needed to advocate for her child.
The third testimony came from Valerie
Stevenson of Phyllis Wheatley Community Center; she told an emotionally
wrenching story of a young man with abundant artistic talent but caught, in the
absence of adequate attention at home or school, in the heavy throes of
addiction. Ms. Stevenson reached out and got some response from Hennepin
County social workers, but the response from Minneapolis Public Schools staff
was very limited, with little follow-up when the young man was absent for
prolonged periods. He ended up dying from causes stemming from his
addiction.
The fourth testimony came from Andrew
Williams, Executive Director of Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs
(HECUA), conveying an account of a principal at an MPS elementary school who
demonstrated little willingness to meet with representatives of the Welcoming
Equity Parent Committee, who lived out-of-state (presumably in Wisconsin), and
seemed very detached from the life of the community the principal
served. The parents who sought the meeting were African American
parents whose children attend a school with an overwhelmingly white student
body and an atmosphere of racially insensitivity.
The nature of the responses from the
candidates was notable and unsurprising:
Rebecca Gagnon responded with apparent empathy but with
frequent reference to underfunded programs and the need for more staffing to
meet a range of student needs, with a vow to work for better funding and more
staffing while enhancing relationships with Hennepin County and other
outside providers of services; she was keen on demonstrating how well she
knows the MPS system as it is.
Josh Pauly also tended to make reference to existing
departments and programs, with a vow to make these work more effectively;
less knowledgeable about the MPS system than the two-term incumbent Gagnon,
Pauly additonally drew from his multiple commitments to community betterment as
he expressed abiding concern for the issues raised by the four giving
testimony.
Kimberly Caprini grew up in North Minneapolis and could speak
with genuine compassion for the four people giving testimony. She made
reference to experiences of people whom she has known or encountered who had
similar life stories, credibly making the case that she would bring her
sensitivity to these issues to make the MPS system more responsive.
But it was Sharon El-Amin who
distinguished herself in her tone of voice, facial expressions, and sensitivity
of responses. She spoke as a mother whose three children have all
attended the Minneapolis Public Schools (including one who currently attends
North High School) and have felt the sting of racial insensitivity. From
El-Amin we get not reference to a system that needs mere tweaking, to existing
departments that need more funding and staff--- but to a system that
needs a dramatic change of culture, must be infused by human beings of much
elevated sensitivity and skill, with or without greater material resources,
dedicated to the greatest calling imaginable: the education of all of our
precious children.
Rebecca Gagnon knows the system as it
is: She has sustained that wretched system during her eight years on the
MPS Board of Education.
Josh Pauly seems like a well-meaning enough
young man.
Kimberly Caprini can bring a bevy of community
commitment to the school board and should be one of the two elected to one of the
two contested At-Large seats.
But Sharon El-Amin distinguished herself on
Monday, 15 October, as a person who feels the mission of education and
nurturing all of our children deep down to the core of her being. She
must be elected, and I am fast making the rounds in all community forums
available to give my enthusiastic support for her election to the Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education on 6 November.
……………………………………………………………..
The forum on Monday was conducted in far from
perfect format. The four stories were compelling, and the emotional depth
of Sharon El-Amin’s responses was very moving. Not a single question,
though, focused on matters of academic quality at the core of a school system’s
reason for being; but in her responses,
El-Amin overcame the imperfection of format to distinguish herself with answers
that suggest that she herself does understand the purposes of K-12 education
and a has a fervent dedication for making the Minneapolis Public Schools an
institution for impartation of genuine academic excellence to students of all
demographic descriptors.
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