DANBURY — While Republican Rachel Chaleski is excited about the opportunity to represent city residents in Hartford next year, the newly elected state legislator is quick to admit her budding political career is not not the product of a permanent aspiration to serve.
Weeks away from the stress of election night and casually sipping tea at Elmer’s Diner on Friday morning, Chaleski remarked on the lack of political influence in his family and described being far from exhibiting the characteristics of a future politician. She was never a comfortable lecturer and maintained an “intermediate” status as a student throughout her college career.
“I wasn’t brought up to be a politician – my family isn’t political at all.” Chaleski said. “Not at all. I remember going to vote with my parents maybe a few times and it was old school, pulling a real lever with a curtain but they never talked about politics.
After serving on the Danbury School Board since 2017, the school board president edged out incumbent Ken Gucker, D-Danbury, last month by a narrow margin of 27 votes to take the House 138th District seat and claim the only victory among the Danbury Republicans. Party candidate map.
But the lack of political savvy in her lineup doesn’t mean Chaleski isn’t qualified for her new job — in many ways, her background is exactly what prepared her for what’s to come.
The Warwick, RI native grew up in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom home as the eldest of four children — two sisters and a brother — who all attended public schools in the city. His mother worked full-time as an administrative assistant and then in finance for an insurance company; his father a welder for the Electric Boat Company who held numerous part-time jobs.
“I haven’t grown much,” she added. “But my parents instilled in me a strong work ethic and compassion for others.”
Passion for education
At Concordia College in Bronxville, NY, Chaleski met her husband, Carl, before the couple moved to Danbury in 2000. They have since called the city home, but it wasn’t until their first born son died. enrolled in kindergarten in 2012 that Chaleski began an ongoing engagement with local politics
“I just wanted to know more about my child’s day at school,” she said. “He was 6 years old, went to kindergarten for eight hours and came home and I was like, ‘How was your day? What did you do? What did you learn? And it was like , ‘I do not know anything.’
Chaleski, said her curiosity about her children’s education led her to begin attending parent-teacher organization meetings where she became interested in how local governance affected the school district.
“It was kind of like high school where it was kind of clicky, you know? I was never the popular kid in high school, so it was like “here we go again,” she recalled with a laugh. “But I continued.”
With her two children attending Magnet Elementary School at the Western CT Academy for International Studies years later, she said the first issue she tackled stemmed from a decision by the city’s Board of Education. eliminate ‘sibling privilege’ for families in Danbury seeking to enroll their children in school, but not for those families who send children from surrounding neighborhoods.
The privilege meant parents would have preference in enrolling their children if any of their siblings had already secured a place through the standard lottery system.
Although it does not directly affect his children, Chaleski said the idea that they would eliminate privileges only for Danbury students and not others was “discriminatory”.
“I didn’t even know there was a school board before this, and it was like, who makes this decision?”
The sense of inequity led Chaleski to enroll in a free 20-week Parent Leadership Training Institute — a program designed to teach parents the intricacies of civic engagement as a way to advocate for their children.
Although she may have been an “intermediate student” in her younger years, Chaleski excelled in the course where she practiced public speaking and learned how to pressure school board members at their meetings. and circulating petitions.
She only missed one of the parent leadership classes during the 20-week semester in order to attend a budget presentation provided by the nonpartisan political organization, the School and State Finance Project. Eventually, the Board of Education reversed the position of student privilege, keeping the rule in place for all students and their families.
“I was just a pest,” Chaleski said. “I kept showing up, I kept talking. I regularly met parents who came to tell me, what can I do?”
The feeling of having an impact on the decision of the Board of Education impressed her when she learned more about how the school district works, in particular the education cost-sharing formula of the state, which the state Department of Education first established in 1989 as a means of distributing approximately $2 billion in state education funding to school districts across the state.
Above all, the newly elected state representative has discovered the value of a years-long campaign to establish a charter school in Danbury, which she sees as a way to improve student achievement in the school district. The question was one of the main differences between her and her opponent during her campaign.
Members of Danbury’s legislative delegation strongly opposed the idea, arguing that it would take funds away from the school district’s budget.
Chaleski noted in 2017, “when the state legislature was roughly split between ‘Democrats and Republicans,’ there was more room for compromise, but now it’s like one-party rule and (the Democrats) can do whatever they want.”
Non-partisan
Chaleski does not claim unchecked loyalty to the party line. During his campaign, many Republican candidates running for office downplayed any threat of the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court because access to abortion remained codified in Connecticut state law; while Chaleski was unwavering in her desire to always support a woman’s right to choose.
As school board president, Chaleski maintains a calm and reserved demeanor, which reflects the fact that she is more interested in listening and making decisions based on research and context regarding the district’s budget challenges. school and other issues.
She shook her head recalling the anger displayed by parents upset over mask mandates during the pandemic and said she was uncomfortable with parents’ concern alleging Danbury schools are teaching “theory criticism of race” when she knows that is not the case..
She also disagreed with statements made by other Board of Education members at a recent meeting that criticized a small part of a large set of educational goals set by school administrators. seeking to ensure the program is “culturally competent” in a school district where more than 60 percent of students identify as a race other than white and nearly 30 percent qualify as English language learners.
“I found my passion to serve during my time as a ‘professional volunteer’ at the local level and my goal is to bring that passion and experience to the state level,” Chaleski said of his future. role at Hartford.
“All I can do is get up there and make some noise and relationships and build relationships and hopefully do something,” she added.
