I would like to take this time to express my sincere appreciation to the New Jersey School Board Association for selecting me to serve as a board of directors (Alternate). Presently, I am preparing myself for the work that will be set before me in the days to come. I don’t take any appointment lightly. My past was not one of sheer beauty. I struggled like anyone else.

The difference between me and others is that while most people tend to retreat at the first sign of trouble, I stand. I don’t cave in to the tribulations that befall me. I take what I know and I use it to take me where I need to go. That’s the purpose of education. It’s not just to get a good job. Education is a tool – a tool that we all should use to help our community.

So, it is with a great deal of humility, that I accept this assignment. And I vow to work hard. I wow to hold people accountable as the community continues to do so towards me. I vow to continue to keep the community abreast as to all of the work I’m doing and the latest in any legislation surrounding the topic of education, especially public education in urban areas.

I want to be the best alternate one could ever have appointed.

I would like to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Even if it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures! Sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well!”  If you can’t be a pine on the top of a hill, be a scrub in the valley, but be the best little scrub on the side of the rill.  Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.  If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail.  If you can’t be a sun, be a star.  It isn’t by size that you win or you fail; be the best at whatever that you are!”

In conclusion: I want to assure you that I will always work hard to make you, the community, proud of me. I strive to work hard. Not just for me, but for my children and every student in the great City of Paterson.

Written by Corey Teague, a school board member.