Oral History Interview on School Residency and Civil Rights (with video)

Gwen Samuel is a mother from Meriden and the founder of the Connecticut Parents Union. Her life’s work is dedicated to empowering parents in Connecticut, and around the country, so that they may fight to improve the schools that their children attend. Samuel believes that all parents should have a say in where their children go to school, that they should be able to make a choice and not be forced to send their children to a school that is unsafe or failing. In her efforts to end zip code laws, Gwen Samuel has worked closely with the two 2011 residency cases, rallying support for Tanya McDowell (Bridgeport) and Marie Menard (Stratford), hoping that the injustices against parents in residency case arrests will gain national attention. She hopes that arrests against parents will stop and that, as a whole, failing schools will improve