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Mona Davids

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In The News

City Council schedules hearing on ‘Avonte’s Law’ school-exit alarms

by Admin June 26, 2018July 2, 2018
City Council schedules hearing on ‘Avonte’s Law’ school-exit alarms

Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union said she was pleased the council is finally taking up the measure.

“Council Speaker [Mark-]Viverito has to stop acting like her predecessor, Christine Quinn. Avonte’s Law needs to be brought up for a vote,” Davids said.

By Carl Campanile | May 28, 2014 |

The City Council will finally hold a public hearing on a bill that would require alarms on the exit doors of public schools to prevent tragedies such as the disappearance and death of Avonte Oquendo.

The June 12 hearing was announced just hours after The Post reported that the council’s Education Committee was dragging its feet in taking up “Avonte’s Law” — despite support from 46 of the 51 council members and all major parent groups.

The de Blasio administration had raised objections to the measure, and some reps from the teachers union had expressed misgivings.

Brooklyn Councilman Robert Cornegy, who introduced the bill March 12, welcomed the hearing.

“We’re excited about this opportunity, which has been long awaited,” said Cornegy, who has five children in public school and is the bill’s chief author.

“I wasn’t just thinking as a legislator. I was thinking first as a parent. I was extremely frustrated for the parents. I promised I would do something for them.”

Avonte, 14, who was autistic, slipped out of a side door at his school in Long Island City, Queens, undetected in October and was missing until he was found dead in January.

Since then, at least seven other students, some as young as 4, have walked out of their school buildings.

Should the measure become law, alarms, each costing about $160, would be installed in school buildings housing 600,000 elementary and special-education students.

The total price is expected to come in at between $1 million and $1.5 million, which Cornegy said would be money well spent.

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito supports the concept of school-exit alarms and believes hearings will help determine the best solutions — in concert with the de Blasio administration — in addressing student safety, an aide said.

Mark-Viverito’s office insisted the council had not deliberately delayed action.

Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union said she was pleased the council is finally taking up the measure.

“Council Speaker [Mark-]Viverito has to stop acting like her predecessor, Christine Quinn. Avonte’s Law needs to be brought up for a vote,” Davids said.

In earlier budget testimony, Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm said, “I don’t think the Department [of Education] is going to support that bill . . . We do not think it’s a prudent use of funds to do every single door.”

The mayor’s office and the department put out more positive statements that stopped short of endorsing the bill.

“Ensuring that our school entrances are secure and our schools are safe are, of course, priorities for the administration,” said a mayoral spokesman, Wiley Norvell.

https://nypost.com/2014/05/28/city-council-schedules-hearing-on-avontes-law-school-exit-alarms/

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Still I Rise – A Poem By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise
I rise
I rise.

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