November 09, 2022 Patron Presentation, Damon Barone
Greetings, Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus.
I really just want to talk about the beginning of the school year, before the school year, we talked about the importance of having our kids in class. So much so by the state instead of talking about school days they have actually cut it down to minutes in class.
Talk about how the free and reduced lunch is pushed on our community, one because it supports funding, and two because our community needs it. Many times, our children come to our schools and that is the one and only meal that they have, their breakfast, their lunch, and then their afterschool snacks.
So, with that being said I was quite concerned for the community which we serve when an email went out that our school district was shutting down. The email was sent out on Sunday that the school district was shutting down on Monday so that our families, it said families, could celebrate the Astros win.
Now it behooves me on what that message looks like to our kids to say that the Astros, a professional football teams [baseball teams] win is more important than our education.
It behooves me to see that the district says that the Astros win is more important than our community getting the mills in which they deserve and which we say that we are serving.
So, I am confused as to how we say we serve our community but we just continue to disenfranchise our community by putting not enough thought into the community in which we serve, 90% socially economically disadvantage. Our parents are working two and three jobs. Guess what, so they do not have vacation time. They are not able to take off from work to go to the Astros game [Astros parade]. They had to pay for child care services because their children were not in school. Did anybody think about those things?
When we did the superintendent search I specifically talked about the dynamics of our community, 90% socially economically disadvantaged, they take two and three busses simply to get to the administration building. Those are the people in which you were elected to serve. Those are the people who your salaries pay you to serve, and I am just not seeing that.
It hurts my heart to see that we continue to disenfranchise the individuals that bring the funding to our district because we put our personal decisions or desires ahead of them. Yet when it is time to receive funding for them being socially economically disadvantaged, when you receive funding for them being in the classroom then that is the only time that we want to think about their impact and how important it is for us to serve the community in which we supposedly represent.
So, consider that next time that the Astros win a championship, or the Texans hopefully one day win a championship, that the community needs more than just to go downtown and celebrate. This is their livelihood in which your decisions are impacted by. Thank you.
Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus.