Educate Our Communities

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    The reality today is that there are over 50,000 vacant educator positions in the United States and around 150,000 educators a year that are leaving the profession. Most educators who leaving the profession state that low salaries, stressful working conditions and long hours are the primary factors for the their decision. To many of us, this is not new information, these problems have been ongoing for years and the lack of support from our legislators of our public education system is embarrassing.

    As your State Representative, Jared Polonowski will work to ensure that all educators have starting wages that are at or above the state's median household income. If we expect educators to live in the communities that they serve then they need to earn enough money to be able to afford to do so. Jared will also work to mandate a maximum class size ratio of 16 students per educator. We have an obligation to not only set up our students for success but also our educators. Jared will work to mandate union involvement among all educators and the administration regardless of position or salary. We have an obligation to ensure that our educators have the ability to collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits and protections. Jared will work to mandate minimum budgeted funds for each educator and their classroom to ensure that no educator has to use their person money to buy the required materials for their classroom. Jared believes that education is our number one priority and that public schools and educators should always be given the support they need.

     Many people may not know that our public education is funded through a variety of sources including sales tax, income tax, property tax, lottery monies, use tax, tobacco tax and real estate transfer tax. These taxes fund both the facilities budget as well as provide per pupil funding.  If a district is lucky, they will write and qualify for federal grants as well. In other words, how well we can fund our public education system is based on the values of properties in our communities and by the value of taxable items sold in the state. Our districts may be able to get a little more funding if they are successful in begging the federal government for help through grant writing but that only works if the district meets certain requirements for things like special education. While each school district is going to have a different number of students and varying facilities at all different levels of need that are going to require different amounts of funding, our legislators feel that determining funding for school districts should be based on dividing up whatever random amount of money comes in from the different revenues of random taxes like those on cigarette sales. It is easy to   come to the conclusion that this is a terrible way to fund our public education.

    As your State Representative, Jared Polonowski will work to ensure that our public education system becomes our top priority. Jared believes that we need to stop the privatization of public education and stop allowing corporations to destroy our education system in order to make a profit. There is an obvious fundamental flaw in how our schools are funded and Jared will work to change how our state determines school district budgets by allowing the districts themselves to influence their budgets based on what their needs are and what their projections are for accomplishments and improvements in the short term and long term. Every student should have the same opportunity to a great education no matter where they live regardless of how many people were able to show up to vote for a millage or whether they have parents with high incomes and property values.

    The average cost for full time child care in Michigan is nearly $1000 a month, however, the minimum wage in Michigan would only earn about $1400 a month after taxes. Obviously someone can not live on $400 a month nor would they be able to justify that cost. Either the parent is not going to work or they would qualify for subsidized childcare which falls on the backs of the taxpayer. Today's reality is that every parent is going to require childcare especially from birth to kindergarten and the american dream where both parents are married and can afford to have one parent stay home is no longer an option for a majority of Michiganders. For most working parents, childcare is an extreme financial burden, in most cases permanently effecting the lives of the children and the ability for Michiganders to build wealth and obtain financial freedom.

    As your State Representative, Jared Polonowski will work to pass legislation that would incorporate childcare and Preschool into the k-12 public school system. Jared will also work to allow childcare funding to go directly to a stay at home parent for the first year of a child's life rather than subsidizing a corporation that provides childcare services. Every parent should have the opportunity to create a bond with their child. Too many times an infant is thrown into a situation that lacks the love and support of a parents just so that working parent can earn slightly more than  than what the state pays out in assistance in daycare. This is inexcusably stupid and financially irresponsible by our government. Jared believes that every parent who wants to work should be able to work and free childcare through the public education system should be available to every resident in the state. Not only does every community already have the facilities and staff to accommodate childcare services but it would reduce tax payer money going to for-profit corporations which essentially subsidize our childcare. Jared also believes that this childcare program would need to be properly staffed and funded within each district. This would promote facilities improvements and additional good paying union jobs within all of our communities.

    About 1 in 7 kids in Michigan live with food insecurity and, until recently during the COVID pandemic, food was not guaranteed to children at school. There has been a large push for free lunch for all in our public school system. This is definitely a start unfortunately over half a million kids still live with food insecurities in Michigan. The free lunch programs also exists, and while good in theory, can be eliminated if the state's computer system doesn't register an uploaded document. For parents with split custody, it becomes even more complicated as the state will only allow one of the parents with 50/50 custody to receive food assistance while the other parents is excluded. This results in a child suffering four days a week. As the demand for school lunches is at an all time high and the demand for food in the school lunch program continues to increase, resulting shortages in our supply to our public schools have occurred and we have seen the quality of the food in our lunchrooms decline and we have seen more inconsistencies across our schools districts, with some districts providing better food and options while other districts do not. This is all while the state says that the meals provided at school are healthier than what children would eat otherwise. This is still unacceptable.

    As your Sate Representative, Jared Polonowski will work to ensure that every child in the public education system receives high quality food while at school, this would include breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks. Jared will also work to ensure that new standards and procedures are put in place to ensure that the food being supplied to students is high quality, healthy and includes a wide variety of options that will promote healthy lifestyles to our children. Jared believes that it is the responsibility of the school district to feed its students and that the best way to impact children, especially those who have food insecurities, is through the public education system. 

    It is no secret that the cost of tuition for colleges and universities is reaching astronomical levels, leaving many college graduates with an amount of debt that cannot be covered by their income with the jobs they obtained with the degrees they have been awarded.  For this reason many people have shifted their attention to the trades, however unpaid/underpaid internships or apprenticeships make it difficult for anyone with existing financial obligations and children to be able to take advantage of this opportunity. For many of those graduates of k-12 who decide to go to college, their financial assistance is dependent upon the income of their parents, who have no obligation to financially back their child's education, leaving them in the dark. For those who can not afford tuition and were lucky enough to grow up poor, they can always beg the federal government for grant money through FASFA. There is no reason that public education has to be like this and it may surprise you that it never used to be like this. Community college and public universities used to be primarily funded by the government and many Americans were able to pay their tuition with a summer job.

    As your State Representative, Jared Polonowski will work to ensure that all community colleges in the state of Michigan are free to attend by any Michigan resident. Jared believes that if you pay taxes and your tax money funds public college and universities, then the tax payer should be able to benefit from those facilities as much or as little as they would like. It should not matter your age or your income bracket, you should be able to enroll in any class in your local community college and improve yourself. Workers should be able to improve their education, allowing them to have vertical movement and increase their earning potential or to make a shift in their employment to do something that they are more passionate about. No one should have to beg the government or justify their education decision to Michigan Works or their employer. Jared wholeheartedly believes that you can never over fund education or become over educated. 

    Union membership among teachers is optional in Michigan. Other staff and administrators are exempt entirely. This is yet again another union busting tactic to keep unions small and weak in order to reduce their ability to negotiate for fair wages and benefits. Their tactics have been working for a long time, pay is at an all time low and a mass exodus of teachers out of the public school system has begun leaving all students behind.  It is time for this to end and it is time to get the government out of the way of Unions and their membership.

    As your Representative, Jared Polonowski will work to ensure that every teacher, administrator and employee in the public school system including colleges and universities are mandated to join a union.  Jared believes that it is only through strong union representation that our educators and workers in public education will be able to have their best interest represented and to provide a brighter future for our students and our public education system.