Rep. Candelaria was recognized as a 2016 Children's Champion by the members of the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance for his leadership on issues related to Connecticut's young children and his focus on critical early childhood education.

Yesterday Sen. Mae Flexer and I held a press conference at the UConn bookstore to announce the results of UConn's open-source textbook pilot program. The results of this program show that the use of open-source textbooks can be expanded, offering an affordable alternative that’s convenient for both students and faculty.

Lauding a Superior Court judge's ruling Wednesday, Representative Bob Godfrey said too many education dollars have gone to rich towns in Connecticut, at the expense of students living in cities like Danbury. Godfrey is looking forward to leading the legislature in making changes to the way Connecticut funds education.

Earlier this month Fairfield resident Jenn Jacobsen and I participated in a ceremonial bill signing for a law to protect student privacy by imposing certain restrictions on the use and sharing of student data. PA 16-189, An Act Concerning Student Data Privacy, will go into effect on October 1.

Hooray for The Mighty Quinn foundation. A $2,116 state grant in support of the arts has been awarded to the Mighty Quinn Foundation of Stratford for providing artistic and educational opportunities to our young women and men. Helping them achieve success we enhance our own community.

The Department of Education recently announced the launch of EdSight, a new website for public school information. This interactive portal makes data about school districts accessible to the public.

I have several announcements to share with you this week!

On Monday, I attended a forum at Silva's Youth of Today Childcare Learning Center in East Hartford put on by Parent Power and the CT Early Childhood Alliance to discuss the changes for the Care4Kids program.

I would like to take a moment to address the Orlando tragedy. As an elected official, many people turn to us in times of crisis to be a voice of reason, a voice of understanding and a voice of hope.