• Treating education as a fundamental right. All children have a right to high-quality education, regardless of where they live, their family’s income level, their race or nationality or gender or religion, and whether or not they are living with a disability.
• Ending our two-tier education system by increasing the Dept. of Ed. budget. Fight for all NYC public schools to be well-funded and properly maintained. Education must be prioritized in City Council immediately!
• Providing smaller class sizes and increase number of teachers.
• Ensuring that all Harlem school buildings have the equipment, staff, and adequate ventilation needed to ensure a safe learning environment during the pandemic.
• Conducting a probe into the unnecessary spending of the Education Department.
• Ending the SHSAT and redesign the specialized high school admissions process with racial equity, diversity, and fairness as central pillars.
• Implementing culturally responsive curriculum that accurately reflects and responds to the lived experiences of the students and communities they serve.
• Ending the resource and technology gap faced by low-income students.
• Increasing the size of existing specialized schools to accommodate a larger, more racially diverse student body. The City should continue to create more specialized schools. Specialized education cannot remain a zero sum game!
• Expanding the Community School program, an education model that allows for healthcare, mental health services, and other social services to be readily available to students and families. Education, food, housing, and health are all human rights, and community schools can be a hub for providing access and supporting communities to realize all of these rights.
• Stopping the practice of business-run charter schools from “double dipping,” which siphons much-needed government funds at the expense of local taxpayers and the public education system.
• Ending the school-to-prison pipeline by removing police in schools and ending zero-tolerance discipline policies.
• Fighting for representations of our history and freedom fighters as they inspire youth and promote education. Sign our petition to get the 135th subway named after Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
• Supporting the historical preservation of Harlem’s culturally significant sites and landmarks, such as Lenox Terrace (where Kristin and her family have lived).
• Fighting for every school building to be fully accessible in a way that accommodates children with mobility issues and fight for more comprehensive legislation that requires equitable education for children with disabilities, including transportation to school, accessible school buildings, and accommodations as needed.
• Advocating for environmental health protections for our community, putting the welfare of people before profits.

Here are some legislative advancements we have made to fulfill our platform:

Cosponsored 0354: Creates the Office of Continuing Education and Adult Literacy, responsible for coordinating and promoting adult educational and literacy services within the five boroughs

A.C.T. in Schools Program: Advancing Classroom Technology (ACT) is a funded $700,000 innovative project designed to improve academics in communities at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, usually communities of color, by redesigning classrooms that reflect the collegiate environment. It’s time to A.C.T. and decrease the technological divide while improving academic standards in an equitable way one school at a time.