After months of focus on national and state-level races, Election Day has come and gone leaving Connecticut residents to come to terms with the outcomes.
“Some people are happy, some people are sad, but at the end of the day our work is still our work, and we need to take care of our students and take care of each other,” says CEA President Kate Dias. “The education of our children is our foundational focus. Education is about people and taking care of one another, and that work has not changed.”
While national elections are making headlines, Dias stresses that it is at the local level that much of students’ and teachers’ day-to-day experiences are shaped.
“Students will feel the impact of national elections, but we live and breathe at the local level, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that,” she says.
Connecticut voters are sending NEA-endorsed candidates back to Washington, D.C., with Senator Chris Murphy and all five members of Connecticut’s Congressional Delegation—including former National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes—winning reelection.
Three CEA members who serve in the State House of Representatives, Kevin Brown, Ron Napoli, and Chris Poulos, were all reelected to their seats as were other friends of education. New public education champions, including educator Nick Menapace, will join them for the 2025 legislative session. With final election counts still being carried out in several towns, as of Wednesday afternoon dozens of CEA Honor Roll recipients had been elected to the State House and Senate.
A ballot measure to make absentee voting more accessible to Connecticut residents also passed.
Dias says, “We can look to our union as a space where we can continue to protect and preserve our working conditions and the institution of public education that we know and value. That work hasn’t changed based on this election, and our commitment to our fundamental work is still as steadfast today as it was two days ago. We’re still in this together, and together we will continue to get the work done.”
