Perhaps the main reason people overwhelmingly support public education year-after-year in America, is that somewhere between 83- and 90-percent of us attended public schools.
Just like our parents and grandparents before us.
But with recent changes like school vouchers putting a cloud over the future funding, local activist group West Texas Indivisible wanted to hold a rally-picnic in support of public education.
Saturday afternoon, with temperatures hovering right-around 90 degrees, and under pleasantly-cloudy skies, attendees of all ages gathered around the pavilion at Kid’s Kingdom Park on the Concho River.
Nick Hill, a local educator with West Texas Indivisible, helped organize the event and spoke briefly about the event beforehand.
“We are a non-partisan group working to get our voices heard, and that’s why we wanted to highlight public education.
“As an educator, I feel like the public schools have been a pawn for politicians for too long.
“Even as we speak, they’re holding our funding bill hostage, and playing games, and this is too important.”
Hill said he was very encouraged to see the school bond pass on May 3.
“The bond passing just showed a huge amount of local support, and it’s proof that there is a large community in San Angelo that support public education.”
Hill said he hopes the everyone with a stake in public education will redouble their efforts, and work together to have the kind of schools everyone says they want.
“Public schools are an important social safety net, to give everyone a fair shot; we don’t keep people out based on who they are, or what they believe.
“It’s a place where we all come together and do our best, to give everybody the best quality start in life that we can.
“And it’s not perfect, whether kids take advantage of the resource is a different issue, but the fact is, I believe in that mission.
“We are trying to give everybody a chance to be successful, and to be good citizens and contributing members of society.”
Opening the event, Hill told the crowd “Today is about protecting public education… and saying that public education matters.
“Right now it just seems like every educational institutions at every level have some kind of censorship going on, or some form of attack.
“So we just wanted to bring light to those issues today.”
The first to speak was ASU Mayer Museum Director Bekah Coleman, who supports public education, and spoke about how funding for the arts affected her career arc.
“One of the reasons I went into my current field, is because back in 2011, if you remember what was going on in Texas education at that time, you’ll remember that’s when the state decided to get rid of all of their elementary art teachers, which is what I was going to be.”
She said she was lucky to be able to pivot to a position with the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts that allowed her to move forward in art education
She also spoke about the importance of grants in the operation of non-profit entities like museums, and outlined the kinds of programs that currently are having their funding ripped away in an effort to make them heel on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, a stated cause of the current administration.
She suggested folks look into all the different grant programs our community relies on let leaders know if you feel they are important.
Laura Smith, a local theater teacher spoke about the importance of electives in public education, saying she wanted to make a case for the Arts.
“Not not everyone is going to be a mathematician,” she told listeners, “And that’s OK; in fact, I think it’s great!”
Smith went on to outline a TED Talk she had seen where art made a big difference for a particular student who went on to an award-winning career on Broadway.
“Sometimes children are motivated and inspired by different things,” she told them. “And we’ve got to give these kids a chance to succeed.”
Smith also said the Arts serve communities by bringing “loveliness, joy and creativity.”
She closed by thanking everyone who worked to support the recent school bond, which received a nice round of cheers, before adding “We really can make a difference, but it starts by shaking-off our indifference.”
Freshly re-elected San Angelo School Board Trustee Ami Mizell-Flint was there and spoke briefly with this reporter
She said she was grateful to have the support of voters in SMD 4, and that she was glad that both bonds had the broad support they needed to pass.
“I was worried for a while, but at a certain point, I felt like maybe things turned… and when both bonds passed, I was very glad to see the public support. It’s so important to invest in the future of our community,” she said.
Mizell-Flint also spent time on Saturday urging everyone to call their state representatives, state senators, and the governor and lieutenant governor to tell them to move forward passing House version of this session’s “School Funding Bill,” HB2.
According to her sources in Austin, that bill is in the Senate being stripped of many important things in the name of saving money.
