Sharpton to speak at rally in support of Tanya McDowell

NORWALK — The Rev. Al Sharpton will be a featured speaker at rally at Brookside Elementary School Tuesday in support of a Bridgeport woman arrested nearly two months ago for allegedly enrolling her child illegally in the Norwalk public school, his office said.

The Equal Education for All Rally, organized by the Connecticut branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will feature Sharpton as keynote speaker. He is expected to speak for 15 to 20 minutes beginning at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday at the 382 Highland Ave. school.

Connecticut NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile said he hopes the rally will help convince state prosecutors to drop a first-degree larceny charge against 33-year-old McDowell.

Tanya’s 6-year-old son A.J. was pulled out of school in January and placed in an elementary school in Bridgeport.

McDowell said she was homeless at the time. A investigation began after McDowell testified in a Norwalk Housing Court case that she lived in Bridgeport. But when police talked to her, she said she only lived in a Bridgeport apartment at night and stayed at the Norwalk Emergency Shelter at other times.

City and school officials did not return calls asking for comment about Sharpton’s plans.

Esdaile said Sharpton, a personal friend, agreed to speak in Norwalk when told about McDowell’s arrest.

Esdaile said there is a national trend involving the arrests of single black women for wrongly enrolling their children in school, and he wants to “nip the trend in the bud” in Connecticut.

McDowell, could face a maximum 20 years in jail and be made to pay up to $15,686 — the amount spent annually on each child attending school in Norwalk.

McDowell, who has pleaded not guilty to the charge, is to appear with her attorney Darnell Crosland at state Superior Court in Norwalk on Tuesday morning.

McDowell is also facing drug charges following an unrelated arrest in November.

State Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, who has said state statutes need to be amended to prevent such cases from being prosecuted as felonies, said he welcomed Sharpton to Norwalk.

“To have a civil rights leader of his stature come to Norwalk on the anniversary of the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court decision is laudable. Equity and education is a civil rights issue of today,” Morris said.

Morris, who also works for the Norwalk school district, confirmed that between last September and May, 26 children were removed from city schools because it was determined they did not live in the proper districts. A small number of those were moved to another city school while the rest were ejected from the district altogether, Morris said.

“There were 26 other people that had a similar situation as Tanya McDowell and none of them were arrested,” Esdaile said, “and that is not right.”

Source: Samford Advocate