U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro stopped by a second-grade classroom in Westville Thursday to talk about friendship, grandmas, chocolate, birthdays, and what it means to be a hero. In a follow-up stop at an eighth-grade social studies class, she then invoked her late mother Louisa when talking about the p erseverance required of being a successful legislator. “You just don’t take no for an answer,” she said, “but you do it in a civil way, with words, never with guns.” Such were some highlights of DeLauro’s visit to Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict School for Science, Technology Communication on Fountain Street in Westville. For about the 20th year, DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, was visiting the school as part of its Read Aloud program. Specifically, she was kicking off February’s Black History Month celebrations, whose theme this year at the school is “dream big, stand tall,” by reading Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon to a carpet full of animated second-graders all in their school uniforms of red tops and khakis. Long-time school cultural support staffer Sean Hardy spearheaded the month-long activities at the school and one of the teachers, Lauren Bitterman, came up with the month’s theme based on reading the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other icons of the Civil Rights era. Hardy, Principal Sandy Kaliszewski, Assistant Principal Kerry Courcey, and others gathered in the school’s entryway and all the arriving kids, by name, and one at a time. While waiting for the congresswoman to arrive, Bitterman shared with this reporter her big dream: (l-r) Lauren Bitterman, Sean Hardy, Sandy Kaliszewski in front of the Black History Month mural How she had been bowled over with enthusiasm for Black history in college after taking an African-American history course at Western Connecticut State University. “I fell in love with it,” she recalled, “and I wanted to become a civil rights lawyer.” Although she’s young enough still to do that (at least in this reporter’s assessment), she’s doing something equally meaningful now in her 15th year teaching fifth-grade math and science. And she continues to love Black History Month activities at the school. In the tale read by DeLauro and written by Patty Lovell and illustrated by David Calrow, goofy, buck-toothed Molly Lou uses tenacity and humor to foil all the attempts of a kid named Ronald to bully her. In the lively Q A that DeLauro conducted after the reading there was much talk about friendship, especially when you start at a new school; the importance of a grandma figure (DeLauro proudly explained how she too was one, with six grands) and that’s why it was no surprise that the life advice provided to Molly Lou enabling her to thrive was given by her grandmother. DeLauro talked to the kids about what it means to be a hero and she cited civil rights activist John Lewis, her colleague in the House until his death in 2020 There was also talk about your favorite chocolate — the kids liked KitKats but their teacher much preferred chocolate truffles; and lots of talk about birthdays – “Did you know,” DeLauro asked the kids, “that I share a birthday with Dr. Seuss?” Who knew! “That’s right. March 2.” Although DeLauro’s reading was decidedly apolitical, this reporter was waiting for one of the bright second-graders to ask whether Molly Lou’s nemesis, Ronald, which begins with an “R,” might be a Republican or if he reminded DeLauro of any other Republican bullies in her political life at the moment. Alas, no student asked, and this reporter, sitting in one of the kids’ chairs, as they were all carpeted, barely restrained himself from raising his hand himself to ask. For her next stop in the visit — upstairs, in Colin McDonough’s eighth-grade social studies class — a white board laid out the three branches of government and their responsibilities. Here, with older kids, the discussion got a tad more political. In a variation on the Black History theme for the month, DeLauro answered one eighth grader’s question on what was the hardest part of her job by saying, “It’s that things just don’t get done fast enough! They take too long! I’ve been fighting for the child tax credit since 2003. You’ve got to get used to not being able to solve things immediately. But some things are just too important ever to give up.” That’s when she quoted her mother Louisa, who died at 103 in 2017 and who served as an alder for 35 years, the longest in New Haven history. When McDonough described to DeLauro recent discussions he had been having with his class on our country’s Venezuelan adventures and, specifically, on which branch in the government has the power to declare war, DeLauro, remarkably, cited Jeanette Rankin. She was the first woman, in 1916, ever elected to Congress and who also became the only congressperson to vote against going to war, in both the first and second World Wars. “I respect the presidency, but I disagree with this president,” she said. “Then again I disagreed with President Obabma. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind!” Before she left the eighth graders, McDonough urged DeLauro to keep working on restoring the child tax credit; he said he had just become a dad. With teacher Colin McDonough’s 7/8th grade class Meanwhile, down below, in Ms. Tong’s class, the kids were likely continuing to lobby their teachers for DeLauro to come back to visit again on Valentine’s Day, preferably with chocolates. About the vote on DHS funding imminent in Congress, she added, “We simply can’t allow the lawlessness to continue.” After an hour spent at the school, half with the second graders and half with the older kids, which she seemed not to want to leave, DeLauro’s staff rushed her off for her next event of the morning, a press conference about food safety in Branford. Before DeLauro left, this reporter asked her about the upcoming vote in Congress on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding. DeLauro called for putting some kinds of requirements — like no masks, no searches without warrants, no driving about neighborhoods terrorizing citizens, and other common sense constitutional reforms — in a stripped out, separate bill funding DHS. That’s currentlty the subject of ongoing tense negotiations, currently in the Senate, to avert a government shutdown Friday at midnight. About the vote on DHS funding imminent in Congress, she added, “We simply can’t allow the lawlessness to continue.” The post DeLauro “Stands Tall,” Reads Aloud With 2nd Graders appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less