---

From readings with Secretary of State Tahesha Way and a Black History Celebration that honored female political leaders of color to a conversation about gun violence with Congressman Frank Pallone Jr, the students in the Asbury Park High School have landed on a landscape that not only takes them across the state but throughout parts of the nation.

Having ranked fifth in last week’s national competition at Harvard University, the Asbury Park High School Debate team returned this week by participating in a topical gun violence conversation with Congressman Pallone on Wednesday; ahead of a planned participation in the March for Our Lives events in Washington DC and in Asbury Park on March 24.

“I have been inspired by the millions of Americans, many of them young people, who are now calling for action to bring about common sense solutions to reduce gun violence,”  Pallone said. “We cannot allow this moment to pass without enacting change and your voice is essential to ensuring that Congress does not look the other way. I want you to know that I will do everything within my power to enact legislation to combat the gun violence epidemic facing our nation.” 

Among them is a ban on assault weapons; increasing penalties for “straw purchasers,” who illegally purchase firearms with the intent to sell or distribute them; regulating the sale of firearms at gun shows and online; requiring a background check for all purchases, nationwide; and funding research dollars to help understand and stay the pandemic.

Pallone was joined by Acting Superintendent Sancha Gray, Asbury Park High School Principal Kathy Baumgardner, Boys and Girls Club of Monmouth County Executive Director Doug Eagles and local representatives of Theresa Turner and Emma Mammano of the Monmouth and Ocean County Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and Karen Kantor of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence who fielded question from students Tatiana Laurore, Quadir Lawson, Kayla Byrd, Oswaldo Garcia, Kathlanda Nelson, Eliyah Tulley, Luis Ortiz, Gustavo Flores, An’Vea Myles, and E’niyah Preston.

And while the hour and a half long conversation ranged from the proposed gun control measures to questioning how the U.S. Constitution’s use of one’s right to bear arms fits into today’s climate, it was the very personal question of how students can affect change from Doug Eagles that brought to light the students’ need for a safe space in order to be one’s self and express one’s thoughts and feelings, as Preston summarised.

“Let’s go back to the Parkland shooter for example,” Preston said. “How the news said he was a troubled boy, he was an orphan and was adopted, and he was bullied. I shouldn’t be sympathizing with him but at the same time I should because there was no safe space for him.”

After hearing from a number of the students and Pallone, Gray outlined the social and emotional learning programs the district has implemented; which include mindfulness, yoga, and restorative initiatives.

The conversation is but one example of the global issues these students are addressing and their growing national and international reach.

In January, close to 90 of them helped research and craft a Human Trafficking Resolution that was ceremoniously adopted by the Mayor and City Council. The governing body then honored the Debate Team a month later, just ahead of the national competition. 

http://asburyparktv.com/ap-high-school-debate-team-interview-february-2018

Following in the wake of last year’s trip to Ghana, the district’s international reach continues as they grow a similar program with students in china. Last week a half dozen Chinese educators and 39 of their students visited the school district, working alongside their local middle school ambassadors at Dr Martin Luther King Jr School and also participated in a Skype session with students from Ghana.

“We are always thinking about the emerging markets and languages to help empower these kids to land on the global landscape,” Gray said. We offer courses and programs to help our students have access to those markets.”

The Asbury Park High School students not only take Mandarin but work with their sister school in China, in the same way the middle schoolers work with their counterparts in Ghana, Gray said. And now the district will look to offer Mandarin at the middle school level.

“We are an international district,” she said. “Our students are thinking globally but acting locally.”

Along with their studies [which has seen a rise in literacy, math and science scores], and the social and emotional learning initiatives, the students are being groomed for exactly what it means to be altruistic and the importance of public service.

This is evident in everything from their participation in the Thought Leaders after school STEAM program to the creative vision Thurgood Marshall Elementary students took in crafting a sculpture from their cans collected for donation to Fulfill, a food bank that serves Monmouth and Ocean County residents.

More now than ever, their efforts are being matched with attention from local, county, and state lawmakers.

“I think for a long time students in Asbury Park felt that no one saw them, almost like they weren’t here and if they did see them it was linked to something negative,” Asbury Park Principal Kathy Baumgardner said. “For the first time the students feel like they are being seen for the positive things they are doing, which they have always been doing but weren’t always recognized for in the past.”

On Tuesday Secretary of State Tahesha Way, Assistant Education Commissioner-elect Kellie Drakeford LeDet, and Chief Academic Officer of Teaching and Learning Dr. Linda Eno kicked off a Black History Month Read Across America by reading stories that showcased Dr Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, and ballerina Misty Copeland.

By Wednesday night the Fourth Annual Black History Month Extravaganza was celebrating not only local women of color like Councilwoman Yvonne Clayton, Kay Harris, and Rev Nicolle Harris but Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, Way, LeDet, and Congresswoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman. They also honored members of the Divine Nine sororities and former Superintendent Lamont Repollet, who is moving on to become the state’s Education Commissioner.

“The rich tradition of this community transcends race, gender and socio-economics,” Repollet said during the event. “I tapped into that purposely by having Black History Month extravaganzas, by showing our students doing amazing things. Our kids are now reading at levels they have never read before. Our graduation rate has increased. We are the number school district in the state in regard to percent increase over four-year cohorts. Our kids have built a canoe and rowed down Deal Lake. Our kids are actually doing experiments at Allied Health and passing college courses in their academies. Our kids now have the opportunity to go to college and go to high school at the same time… if that is not hope and opportunity then I don’t know what is.”

And on Friday, everyone from Freeholder Tom Arnone, Mayor John Moor, and NJ Natural Gas’ Tom Hayes to former Mayor Ed Johnson, Asbury Park Police Department officers, Monmouth University students, and Madison Marquette’s Chris Femiano participated in Read Across America at Bradley Elementary School.

“What is happening in Asbury Park is very important,” Pallone said, referring to the not only the local politics and its progressive spread across the state but to Gov. Phil Murphy’s choice in tapping Repollet as the state’s next Education Commissioner. 

He said he chose the Asbury Park School District’s because like the Parkland, Fla., students, they have the ability to affect change.

“I figured I’d like to hear from my student leaders, locally, not just from the ones in Parkland,” Pallone said.

“I really wanted to stress your activism,” Pallone told the students. “If nothing else, maybe what you do will at least stop Congress from moving in the opposite direction.”

Gray said instead of joining the National School Walkout movement, scheduled for March 14, the district’s students will be doing a Walkin, which will feature a screening of the day’s discussion with Pallone followed by their own internal discourse. 

[Photos, in part, courtesy of the Asbury Park School district.]

————————————————————————————————————-

Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Asbury Park Sun is affiliated with the triCityNews newspaper.

---