Help get Ahmie elected to School Board!

Ahmie put her hat in as a school board candidate when she learned there was an open seat on a mission to bring Inclusion, Opportunity, and Flexibility to more families in our district.

Ahmie (who has Hypermobility Syndrome and has been a semi-ambulatory wheelchair user since 2008) has been bothered for years by the disability accessibility barriers in so many of our schools - including the newly built ones. Ahmie's focus on Inclusion is not just about disability issues, however - she also believes in "centering the margins" of our communities in all ways, making sure that all of us feel like we belong in our shared spaces. Ahmie has been working on this issue since she co-chaired the District Configuration Subcommittee of the Phase 3 process back when she only had two pre-school-aged children. For those who have lost count, Ahmie has five children (all male at birth, the 4th as of this year identifies as non-binary with a lot of patience toward masculine pronouns), and her eldest (William, who is running for Lakewood Mayor) graduated from Lakewood High School in 2022 having already completed his B.A. in Organizational Leadership from Cleveland State University after completing his Associate of Arts from Cuyahoga Community College in May 2020 - all of which was paid for by Ohio's College Credit Plus program.

This brings us to the second plank in Ahmie's platform: Opportunity. Ahmie wants to see as many of our students taking advantage of the College Credit Plus program as possible to avoid the student debt burden Ahmie's generation has been saddled with, but also wants to promote and enrich our vocational education options via increasing connections between those students and various civic engagement opportunities. Ahmie believes this will help our youth develop a sense of meaningful purpose that will help them be lifelong carriers of the Vision of a Lakewood Graduate. To Ahmie, being fully human is to work with our hands, hearts, and minds engaged in making things better for those around us.

Ahmie's third platform plank - Flexibility - relates to wanting to lift up and enrich the opportunities that have come about through our recovery from the pandemic. Too few people know that Lakewood has a within-district all-virtual K-12 option staffed and supported by Lakewood City Schools personnel. Ahmie's son William wound up needing virtual schooling in the 2015-16 school year after suffering three concussions in a six-week timespan in the first marking period of 6th grade and having seven months of Post-Concussion Syndrome symptoms. If Lakewood already had a virtual option serving 6th grade back then, we were not informed of it, so we reluctantly made the decision to enroll our son in Treca Digital Academy (the only non-profit and Ohio-only online charter school - a wonderful option for Ohio families who do not have an in-district fully virtual option when they need it). It was during William's time at Treca that we learned about College Credit Plus, and we chose to keep him virtual to allow him the time balancing needed to attend college courses starting in 7th grade without sacrificing his childhood. We learned that Lakewood offered fully-virtual to 6th grade before our second son finished 5th, and with the success of William's CCP pathway, we have opted for virtual school through Lakewood's Franklin School of Opportunity for the rest of our children's 6th through 8th grade years. While the staff is wonderful and the curriculum is preparing our children well, that program really needs support to become all it could be in the way of a welcoming option for Lakewood families who cannot participate in our in-person options.

So far, our family has been DIYing the campaign materials. As fun as having a mini maker space in our family room can be, the kids would REALLY like to not have to hand-assemble any more yard signs using posterboard, duck tape, and the laser printer. Can you help us afford some union-made campaign signs before the kids go on strike?