On June 16th, our community returns to the polls for a budget revote. I am not here to tell you how to cast your ballot – that sacred right belongs to you and you alone. But I will not stand before you and pretend to be neutral. I am an educator. I am a neighbor. I am someone who has looked into the eyes of the children of this city and made them a promise. And I will not be silent when everything we promised them is on the line.
This is about a 1.5% levy. It is also about everything.
When a school budget fails, the cuts that follow are not abstract. They have names. They have faces. They sit in our classrooms. They ride our buses. They wear our colors on Friday nights.
Let me tell you what hangs in the balance.
Our children’s futures are at stake. The programs that identify and nurture gifted students, that provide early intervention for those who are struggling, that give our young people a fighting chance in a competitive world are not luxuries. They are not extras. They are the floor beneath our children’s feet. And when budgets collapse, that floor gives way first for the children who can least afford the fall.
Our educators are at stake. Mount Vernon’s teachers and support staff show up every single day for our students. Rain or shine. Underpaid and overextended. Still showing up. Positions eliminated in a budget crisis do not always come back. Experienced teachers leave. Class sizes balloon. The relationship between a child and a trusted adult in that building gets stretched thinner and thinner. Until it breaks.
Our most vulnerable students are at stake. After school programs. Special education services. Guidance counselors. These are not line items. These are lifelines for children navigating learning differences, trauma, and the very real weight of growing up in an under-resourced city. Budget failure does not impact every child equally – it falls hardest on those who were already carrying the heaviest loads.
Our extracurriculars are at stake. For some of our children, the band rehearsal, the debate team, and the athletic field are the reasons they walk through that door every morning. The research is clear: students engaged in after-school activities have higher graduation rates, lower rates of involvement in the juvenile justice system, and stronger social-emotional outcomes. We cannot afford to take those doors away.
Our community’s trajectory is at stake. The quality of our schools shapes who stays in Mount Vernon. Who invests here? Who builds here? Who raises their children here? Every generation that passes through these buildings either lifts this city or quietly signals that we gave up on it.
I refuse to give up on it.
I know you do too.
Mount Vernon has always been a city that fights. We fight for our families. We fight for our block. We fight for each other. June 16th is not just a vote. It is a declaration. A declaration that we see our children. That we value our children. That we will not let our children down.
The children are watching.
They always are.
Dr. Demario A. Strickland
Superintendent of Schools
Mount Vernon City School District
