Coming on the heels of this morning’s teacher union protest, today Democratic mayoral candidate Chris Setaro released his educational platform for the city.

The city has continued to grow in population, even as other communities decline, and increased enrollment has created challenges for our educators.  Overdevelopment, particularly on Danbury’s West Side, without a plan to manage that growth, increased enrollment, and years of inadequate funding have led to our schools being overcrowded and underserved. Adding modular classrooms to Westside and Shelter Rock only serve as a short-term solution that alleviates the problem for now. But Danbury needs a real plan to address the district’s needs today, not temporary solutions that just push the problem off until tomorrow.

We can and must do better. Our children’s future and the future of the city depend on it. As Mayor, I will take action and begin a conversation with parents, teachers, community and business leaders, administrators and others for answers. I will take action to ask the hard questions and get the answers we need:

• Work with the Board of Education and the City Council to prioritize our education budget and find the resources that our schools and students need to be successful
• Create a commission that will include facilities experts, educators, parents and other community stakeholders so we can build a strategic plan for the schools including both its infrastructure and operational needs.
• Work with our State Representatives and State Senators and leadership in Hartford to make sure Danbury gets its long overdue fair share of education funding.
• Ensure that our children get the best start in life they can by creating free pre-k programs citywide.
• Connect high school students with local companies and higher education institutions  right here in Danbury to expand our workforce.

Yesterday morning, local agencies and the City of Danbury celebrated the launch of DanburyWORKS; a city-wide collaborative dedicated to reducing the poverty rate in Danbury by 30 percent over the next ten years.

From the DanburyWORKS website:

DanburyWORKS is a city-wide collaborative targeting these residents who struggle to make ends meet, as well as those who are in poverty. DanburyWORKS links services across the community to make it easier for households in need to access the tools necessary to build a better life for their families, and a stronger economic force for our city.

The collaborative has local organizations, businesses, social service agencies, government officials, educational institutions and residents who recognize the barriers limiting the economic contributions people of color and immigrants and are committed to making a change. Together, we use our network of services to move city residents into the workplace feeling connected, and prepared to learn and grow.

By city agencies pulling their resources together under the DanburyWORKs collaborative, the program hopes to better improve the quality of life for residents in the city.

Funding for DanburyWORKS includes a a 450,000 grant from the Boston Federal Reserve’s Working Cities Challenge, "a grant competition that is designed to support cross-sector, collaborative leadership and ambitious work to improve the lives of low-income people in small and mid-size cities in Connecticut.”

From yesterday, here are highlights of the collaborative launch.

For more information on DanburyWORKS, you can go to their website, “like” their page on Facebook, or contact contact DanburyWORKS Initiative Director Sandra Ferreira at 203-297-6283 or email at sandra.ferreira@uwwesternct.org.