What Monica Wallace has been doing to support public education and protect youth:
Promoting public education and youth recreation across New York:
Advocated for and helped pass historic levels of state aid for schools, including fully funding Foundation Aid to ensure more resources are provided to schools with the highest need.
Helped pass funding for education and mental health support to help children overcome the effects of the pandemic.
Secured budget provisions to allocate portions of mobile sports betting revenue for youth sports programs.
Advocated for and helped pass major expansion to free school meals program.
Delivering for local school districts and youth recreation programs:
Secured nearly $500,000 for Maryvale School District to launch a pilot Family Support Center, hire a social worker, offer new STEM programs, and support music and Advanced Placement courses.
Secured $75,000 for Depew Union Free School District to hire a School Resource Officer.
Secured $100,000 for Cleveland Hill School District to purchase security cameras, building upgrades, and renovations to elementary school library.
Secured funding for Cheektowaga-Sloan schools to expand reading programs to elementary school students.
Secured funding for Cheektowaga Central schools to purchase new technology to help keep students engaged.
Secured $100,000 in seed funding to launch Boys & Girls Club of Cheektowaga, as well as $250,000 for security and accessibility upgrades to the facility.
Secured $25,000 for Cheektowaga Youth & Recreation to launch new intramural programs and $15,000 for the Lancaster Youth Bureau for programming and air purifiers.
Secured $30,000 for Depew-Lancaster Boys & Girls Club to purchase new games and equipment.
Protecting Youth:
Sponsoring legislation to educate young people about the emotional harms of social media use and strategies to maintain their mental health.
Co-sponsoring legislation to protect children’s mental health from addictive feeds deployed by social media companies.
Introduced legislation to require disclosure of ingredients and chemicals in Vaping products and to raise the age of purchase of Vaping and Tobacco products to 21.
Passed the legislation to prevent abuse of children, allow survivors to seek redress and justice, and help ensure abusers are punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Passed legislation to make clergy mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse.
Passed legislation to ban use of flawed, biased facial recognition technology in school security.
“As a proud parent of children who attended public schools, I am deeply and personally committed to helping our public school teachers and students excel. That’s why I have fought to ensure our public schools are adequately funded and that students’ needs are being met. I’ve also fought to protect the safety of our children, to expand recreation programs for kids and teens, and to ensure every child has an equal opportunity to succeed in life. ”
