News and Media

In this article, school wellness advocate Jessica Bauer Walker, director of child nutrition services Ruth Conner, and Chief Operating Officer David Hills celebrate this milestone in providing students healthy, fresh, and culturally appropriate meals.

(June 23, 2025)

In this article, Jessica Bauer Walker and her daughter Serea Walker explain the importance of providing safe, healing spaces for youth, where they can explore their culture, identity, and history, as well as engage intergenerationally.

(June 19, 2025)

In this special programming honoring the May 14th Tops Massacre, Dennice Barr, social justice organizer, and Serea Walker and Freebirth Omoigui, Youth Community Health Workers, join Jillian Hanesworth and Ekua Mends-Aidoo to discuss life in Buffalo post-5/14, and the importance of intergenerational dialogue.

(May 16, 2025)

In this WBFO segment, Jay Moran sits down with Jessica Bauer Walker, a Community Health Worker and a Buffalo Public Schools parent, and Sam White, Supervising Attorney for the School Discipline Project at Western New York Law Center. The three discuss the Buffalo Suspension Coalition and a recent report on suspensions from Buffalo Public Schools. For our second segment, Guest Host Jillian Hanesworth sits down with Jessica and Rehma Kashindi, a Youth Community Health Worker, to discuss suspensions from the perspective of a BPS student.

(November 20, 2024)

Local advocates sat down with WIVB News 4 on Monday to call for solutions rather than suspensions as they say Buffalo Public Schools has one of the highest suspension rates in New York State. Co-chair of the BPS Community Health Worker Parent and Student Association Jessica Bauer Walker says parents and students alike have called on the schools to lower the suspension rates and shift from a punitive system to a restorative system. Fellow co-chair and student Rehma Kashindi says there is miscommunication between teachers and students. Instead of being able to grow, students are just sent home, she said.

(October 28, 2024)

Representatives from the New York Civil Liberties Union, CoNECT, the WNY Law Center, the Community Action Organization’s WNY Educational Equity Task Force, district Parent Congress leaders, University at Buffalo School of Law and others briefly discussed where they believe Buffalo Schools is falling short in its punitive discipline model and urged further growth in restorative practices.

(October 28, 2024)

Thomas O’Neil-White hosted a Buffalo Public Schools roundtable discussion, which featured conversations on educational opportunity gaps, student mental health, and safety across all campuses. This show features parent leaders and Community Health Workers Jessica Bauer Walker, Danielle Grzymala, and Ed Speidel, as well as student Community Health Workers Shannon Morgan and Rehma Kashindi.

(September 16, 2024)

Hutch Tech Senior Rehma Kashindi said, "This isn't something that's talked about in the classroom but it directly impacts students and says it's important that they know too." Kashindi said, "We've been having a lot of discourse in the Buffalo Public Schools commissary issue, and this is mainly just to get more information so that we can have accurate information so that we're spreading to our communities."

(September 12, 2024)

Parent and student Community Health Workers urge district to prioritize the commissary project and address pressing need for improved school food. They also emphasize why access to nutritious food is so important for student wellness.

(June 24, 2024)

Parent leaders emphasize the need for improved collaboration, oversight, and communication from the Buffalo Public School district and the City of Buffalo as stalled plans for new commissary face further delays.

(June 23, 2024)

Buffalo Public Schools have been back in session for a couple of weeks now, but days before the start of this new school year, Lorenzo Rodriguez and Thomas O’Neil-White sat down with a group of students—Innocent, Freebirth, and Sangam—and parents Edward Speidel - the President of the District Parent Coordinating Council and Co-Chair of the Special Education Parents Advisory Committee, Danielle Grzymala, Co-Chair of the Buffalo Parent-Teacher Organization, and Jessica Bauer Walker, Executive Director of Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo, to discuss some of their concerns.

(September 25, 2023)

To provide a resource for suspended students, a coalition comprising of CoNECT, the WNY Law Center, UB School of Law, Erie County Restorative Justice Coalition, the regional NYCLU and others debuted a Suspension Intake Hotline, at 716-220-7081.

(June 8, 2023)

CoNECT members address the disproportionate rate of out-of-school suspensions in the Buffalo school system and the “Solutions not Suspensions” bill and what their group is doing to better tackle our students’ needs.

(June 5, 2023)

BPS Community Health Worker Parent & Student Association educate BPS students, and parents about their rights with suspensions.

(April 15, 2023)

Members of the Community Health Worker Network, parent leaders, and students advocate for ending school suspensions.

(January 30, 2023)

BPS students call on the district to adopt recommendations from the Solutions Not Suspensions Act during a press conference.

(January 26, 2023)

Jessica Bauer Walker looks at what the community can do -- and what government should do to help vulnerable populations during crises like a blizzard, the COVID-19 pandemic or even the Tops shooting.

(January 19, 2023)

CoNECT, PUSH Buffalo, Buffalo Urban League, Native American Community Services, Erie County Restorative Justice Coalition and 211 WNY partner to reactivate ANCHOR in response to the blizzard.

(January 8, 2023)

The Community Health Network of Buffalo along with local students and parents work to find solutions to suspension rates in Buffalo Public Schools.

(December 20, 2022)

The Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo strives to train health care workers on issues of health equity.

(October 20, 2022)

BPS, and ECDOH partner with parents and students to keep families safe during the omicron surge. The Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo hosted its first of many vaccine clinics at local schools in the City of Buffalo.

(January 15, 2022)

The Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo is working with Erie County and Buffalo Public Schools to host a free vaccine clinic today [November 20, 2021] at International Prep High School, at 110 14th Street in Buffalo.

(November 20, 2021)

This episode is hosted by Justice Gatson, a Kansas City based organizer, who organizes intersectional movements that uplift the voices of the most marginalized groups. The second segment, hosted by Andrea Ó Súilleabháin of the Partnership for the Public Good, discusses strategies for racial justice and health equity in the fight against lead poisoning in Buffalo homes and neighborhoods with Rahwa Ghirmatzion from PUSH Buffalo, Jessica Bauer Walker of Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo, and Maria Ta of Ujima Company.

(November 16, 2021)

The Erie County Department of Health teamed up with the Community Health Worker Network of Western New York to host “Cheer On Your Team and Get a Vaccine" at Bennett High School, in an effort to help raise vaccination rates in different neighborhoods.

(October 9, 2021)