Tuesday night was the Moms Demand Action first meeting of the New Year. They also have their daytime meeting Wednesday at 9am for those who missed the regular evening meeting. Here's a quick overview from a previous post:
Moms Demand Action is a national organization for reforming gun policy with a local chapter here in Champaign-Urbana (facebook page here). They have regular monthly meetings and other events, but their main focus heading into the midterm elections is supporting what they call "Gun Sense" candidates. Gun Sense is a shorthand for what they view as common sense solutions to gun violence. More information on that at the Everytown for Gun Safety website on the subject.
Tonight's Meeting:
A slate of Unit 4 school board candidates introduced themselves and answered some questions. Elizabeth Sotiropoulos explained how they were running as a slate of candidates in the upcoming April 2nd municipal elections. Vote by mail applications are already available: information here, update on online request problem here.
Michael Foellmer described his anxiety dropping off his daughter at school in the current environment worrying about gun violence. He described his platform as being whole school, whole community, and whole child. He emphasized the need to address the full spectrum of issues kids face in education today.
Jennifer Enoch focus was on equity issues in schools and dealing with the modern segregation issues and their effect on outcomes throughout the educational process. She described her work on a school's equity committee and concerns about the recent teachers union negotiations that led to her decision to run for the school board. One specific concern she mentioned from the teacher's union proposal involved concerns that the board was using active shooter training negotiations as a bargaining chip (proposal here from the related Smile Politely article). This view was disputed by incumbent board member Kathy Richards who asked for her incumbent colleagues running for re-election to have an opportunity to answer questions at a future MDA meeting.
Elizabeth Sotiropoulos then explained her interest in running for several years and her roots in the community. She highlighted both her own education and the educational firm she manages, Illini Tutoring and Academic Coaching, and the challenges faced by parents and students of Unit 4. On the issue of gun violence she highlighted the need to address racism and racial segregation and its role in gun violence in our communities. She also highlighted the need for training and resources to prevent suicide within our community in general, but our schools specifically.
In the Q & A portion the candidates all opposed efforts to arm teachers as a solution to school shootings and a general opposition to opening up the state to such measures at the state level and via pressure in the Illinois Association of School Boards. There appeared to be a general consensus to improve racial sensitivity training, including implicit bias training for staff. An emphasis was made for leadership from affected communities and a need for their concerns to be really listened to and their experiences taken seriously.
The overall idea for violence was to address the underlying causes and to remove the need for armed and otherwise extreme defensive measures while navigating the need for preparedness in the event of a tragedy in the mean time. Active shooter training, non-lethal weapons, and panic buttons were discussed, but also the need to address the dangers of letting fear and anxiety add to or create more trauma. A representative from Truce noted that for solutions to be realistic our appreciation of the danger needs to be grounded in objective reality.
The rest of the meeting mostly ran through the status updates and upcoming events. They'll be confirming an "advocacy day" to lobby State representatives next month. At the state level they're still pushing for the Gun Dealer Licensing reform from the last legislative session. Federal legislation on universal background checks is being floated with the new Democratic Congress and they're looking to educate and build momentum to overcome the political barricades of an otherwise overwhelmingly popular concept.
They are liaising with the campus Students Demand Action and otherwise reaching out to other local organizations and government bodies (e.g. TRUCE and the City of Champaign) towards their goals to reduce violence in the community. The Champaign-Urbana Area Project quickly explained their need for diverse support from the community after the training and collaboration (more on that at an older post here). They explained that their ability to prevent violence depends on all lines of communication from the community.
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