Eyes wide shut

It’s impossible not to be affected by the data that was revealed in an assessment of the needs of Red Bank schoolchildren.

The report is an outgrowth of the Red Bank Education and Development Initiative’s work, and was done in partnership with Meridian Health and the Red Bank schools.

Among other facts, the report revealed that there are children living in Red Bank — including, perhaps, the child sitting next to yours in class — who go home every day to living quarters without running water or electricity.

Some of these children, a 70-student sampling of sixth- to eighth-graders at the middle and charter schools, lack basic health care. Some have never even visited a dentist.

In many cases, parents and guardians told interviewers they could not access health care for their child because providers did not accept their health insurance, or they had no coverage at all.

Children surveyed said they don’t feel safe in town, and it’s no wonder when they lack the basic securities and comforts provided to most American children.

The assessment shakes up perceptions by revealing that the percentage of children living in disadvantaged circumstances in Red Bank is higher than for the county as a whole, including other urban towns like Asbury Park and Long Branch.

There is much more in the assessment that paints a disturbing portrait of children living in unacceptable circumstances in a town that promotes itself as hip and upscale.

It’s seems clear that this is what David Tarver was talking about when he resigned from the RBEDI, citing the disconnect between the people who run the borough and the borough’s children.

Perhaps many of us suspected that children were living in these circumstances, but now that we are confronted with that reality, we need to use this knowledge to bring about change. All of these problems can be remedied if people work together in good faith to solve them.

In the end, we won’t be judged by the popularity of our downtown, but by the healthy, happy and safe children we nurture.