“I’ve never run for office or run a campaign before, so this is my first time,” said East Providence resident, teacher, and mom, Libby Merrill, an organizer with the local advocacy group EPiC (East Providence in Community). “I don’t have the support or backing of a political party, and my campaign would not be able to run without all of you. I’m running for the school committee partly because Abby, my daughter, is in the East Providence Public Schools, but truly because my commitment to education started long before Abby was born. I grew up in a family that valued education, service, and giving back to the community. And I did that as a child.”
Merrill was speaking at her campaign launch party, held at Myrtle on Waterman Avenue in East Providence. Her husband Ryan’s band provided the music, and it was excellent. She continued:
“I grew up on the other side of the Washington Bridge, in Warwick, and I went to public school from K to 12. I really valued it. Just as I’ve found here in East Providence, the public school was the center of the community. A lot of things happened there. That’s where we met our neighbors and formed relationships. To this day, some of my closest friends are people whom I went to school with growing up. And when I went to college, I started doing more service work, and I quickly learned that the world I had been taught growing up was not exactly true.
“I did service work in Appalachia and in the Navajo Nation. I had always been taught that hard work equals financial stability and success, and I saw that that wasn’t the case, and that a lot of folks who work really hard struggle financially their whole life, and the system is built that way. I was angry that in the richest country in the world, we let children live in houses without running water, and elderly folks who worked for the Army in World War II go 60 years without phone lines. I had never been taught that in school, so I became a teacher when I graduated from college 20 years ago because I wanted every child to have the opportunities I had. But I quickly learned that education was not the only piece of that puzzle.
“I was naive and idealistic, and I thought that if every kid had a really engaged, passionate teacher, then everyone would be able to rise out of poverty. I soon learned that wasn’t the case; it was a lot more complex than that, but I have remained committed to education because that’s where my heart is. I love working with kids, and I have stayed. That’s my niche.
“I am running for the school committee because I want to ensure that every child in East Providence has access to a great education, and that’s the area I have expertise in: to lean in and to help support the schools get to where we would all like them to be. I also know that part of being a person on a school committee is protecting the school. Throughout my career, I’ve seen adults use schools as an arena to fight cultural battles. Since I’ve been in East Providence, every year we’ve seen Christian nationalist activists come to the city and attempt to get the school committee to pass policies that would harm transgender students. I would be someone on the school committee who would stand up and not let that happen.
“Unfortunately, we see that the federal administration is trying to defund schools, and we see the federal administration trying to prevent all children from getting an education because of where their families came from and decisions that were made without their input. I would be a school committee member who would block that from happening and ensure that our students in East Providence have access to an education, no matter where they were born. Also in East Providence, we have some weird political battles that our residents like to fight in the schools and the school committee. I would be a school committee member who keeps students at the center and does not let adults use school committee meetings as a way to fight their personal grivences.”
See also:
East Providence residents once again repel anti-trans Christian nationalist
Mélodie Pimentel: A report from the East Providence No Kings event
Thank you so much, Steve! I appreciate all of your diligent coverage of education issues and other social justice issues. You are often the only person covering important issues at our state level.
Also, my husband is Ryan Kowal: https://www.ryankowal.com/.