Rep. Grijalva visits Butterfield, says federal school funding likely to increase

U. S. Rep. Rául Grijalva dropped in to visit the fifth-graders at Butterfield Elementary School this morning, telling them about his life and giving a friendly, informal lecture about the job of a congressman.

He told the students that his fifth grade teacher was one of the most important people in his life. “I will always remember her,” he said, “because when I started the fifth grade, I didn’t know English very well and I was not a good reader and she took a whole year to help me learn to read. Once I began to read, the whole world opened up for me and I have never stopped.”

He said he “really likes” his job but that it is like “doing homework every day of your life. I always have something I have to read or study.”

Grijalva took questions from the students after he spoke, and they weren’t shy about grilling him.

One boy wanted to know what Grijalva’s most embarrassing moment had been and another asked about his most exciting moment. Other students asked him if he had met President Obama, if the president’s daughters are nice girls and how he travels.

Grijalva said his most embarrassing moment came early in his political career when he had just been elected to his local school board. “I was speaking to a group and when I went up there to the front, everyone was staring at me, and then I realized I had zipped up my pants with part of my shirt sticking out,” he said, getting a big laugh from the kids.

He told the students that he has met the president numerous times and watched the Super Bowl with him at the White House in 2009 when the Arizona Cardinals played the Pittsburg Steelers. He added that Sasha and Malia, the president’s daughters, are “very good girls.”

He said his most exciting moment was the birth of his oldest daughter, Adelita, and that he typically travels back and forth by plane, flying home on Friday nights and returning to the Capitol on Sundays. “That is my life,” he said.

School Board Member Carrie Vargas invited Grijalva to visit Butterfield because she wanted to “put a face on the education issues” he will be discussing and voting on in Congress. Grijalva sits on the Education and Workforce Committee and the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. Vargas said “he will be seeing new legislation first, and I thought it would be important for him to see what we are doing here and what impacts legislation will have on us.”

“Congressman Grijalva has always been committed to education and a visit like this gives him information to help support positions that are helpful to education,” said Superintendent Jeff Kleck.

After the fifth-grade assembly, Grijalva delivered some good news in a meeting with with Vargas, Kleck, Butterfield Principal Ember Conley, School Board President Scott Bartle and Board Member Torri Anderson.

“There is a big battle coming over educational funding in Congress this year,” he said. “But I think we will end up increasing funding for schools this year. I think you are going to see more resource support for underperforming schools and more money for innovation and competitive grants.”

He said he would like to see more federal money flow directly to school districts instead of being filtered through the states, and that if that happened there “would be more resources for strategies at the local level.”

Grijalva said Democrats and Republicans in Congress have philosophical differences over education but agree on its importance. “The American people continue to rank education as a huge priority, and right now an argument can be made that if we are going to increase the economic security and security of this nation, we better invest in our schools right now.”

Photo by Steven M. Thomas