This week as our public schools reopen we will be treated to heart warming scenes of those fortunate parents who can take their children to school along with the smiling principals and teachers welcoming students back to school.  This is part of our community’s September ritual showing support of our public schools, our students and our teachers.

What many will not see is the congestion of diesel fueled buses a few feet away from the homes of men, women, children and frail seniors along Brook Street, Lincoln, Sickles and Lockwood Avenues, and the corresponding increase in asthma related incidents. 

Unless you are looking very closely, you will not see the exhausted faces of our 5, 6 and 7 year-old students who live within walking distance of Barnard or Webster Schools but are required to attend Davis or Ward Schools. Many of these students do not have the resources to be driven to school and are expected to travel on buses an hour before the start of school and will return home after 4 pm.    

What you will see is the large crowd of middle school and high school students whose “free public” education requires that they purchase a Metro card or walk in some cases about 2.5 miles to get to school. The cost of the MetroCard is $10.00 per card.  The cost of the student pass is $125.00 for 5-months. This crowd of teen and pre-teen students will diminish over the course of the school year as the weather becomes inclement and the sun sets well before 5:00 pm.   Our teenage girls who cannot afford these Metro cards will start disappearing from afterschool programs, including afterschool academic help during the winter months when night falls at about 4:30 pm and their walking route home may not be safe.

What we never see, but are told, is that those who make the plans for future  prison populations, are awaiting the results of our Black and Brown 3rd graders’  reading test scores so that they can project how many of them will be filling our state and federal prisons in 10 years time.  The expectation that youth will fail and the need to plan ahead for failure suggests that our young people still fall prey to an oppressive system that benefits from the power of race discrimination. 

This year let’s welcome the start of the school year with intentionality.  

• Join the PTA.  If your children are no longer in school, join the Lincoln School Attendance Zone PTSA or the Huguenot Academy PTSA or give a PTSA membership to a family in need.
• Bring a children’s book with you and read out loud to children at the park, at the laundry mat, at the bus stop. Let’s be a community that reads to all our children.
• Volunteer to be a reading buddy.
• Subsidize a membership at the YMCA, SongCatchers or Boys & Girls Club for a family whose child would otherwise not have access to afterschool enrichment opportunities. 
• Organize carpooling within your network for students needing rides to school and/or to the free afterschool programs at the New Rochelle Public Library.
• Find what fits your schedule and/or your income and help!

Let’s all take a moment to see what is in plain sight and work towards creating a New Rochelle community where  all students have safe and free access to educational and enrichment opportunities and all of our 3rd graders are proficient readers by the end of the school year. 

-The New RoAR News Editorial Board