Jennifer Leeper, An Advocate and Champion for Fairfield's Students

Jennifer Leeper: An Advocate and Champion for Fairfield's Students.

From her days listening to community concerns while serving on the Board of Education to the past almost six years serving as State Representative for the 132 District, Jennifer Leeper has consistently put Fairfield's families first. Driven by a commitment to advocate for others, Jennifer Leeper listens to all perspectives, bridges divides and delivers real results for our public schools and real savings to all citizens.

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When Fairfield's school district faced the looming pressure of the state's racial imbalance law and constant threats of redistricting, State Representative Jennifer Leeper stepped up. Alongside district leadership she visited McKinley Elementary in 2023 to hear directly from parents and listen to their desire to preserve the community they had worked so hard to create. Families were just recovering from the traumatic years of Covid era restrictions, the idea of now having to face redistricting was devastating. Jennifer Leeper worked tirelessly at the state level to successfully pause the racial imbalance law, ending an endless cycle of redistricting stress for Fairfield families.

Jennifer Leeper's leadership proved equally essential when Dwight Elementary faced potential closure and the Early Childhood Center (ECC) was in need of more space due to rapid growth. Green lawn signs that read "Save Dwight. Save one school, Save all schools." went up around town. The Dwight Community held a press conference at the town green, Jennifer was there to lend her support. As a public school parent, she understood what was at stake for our children. Fast-forward to today: Fairfield is constructing a brand new Timothy Dwight Elementary School featuring an ECC and a Complex Learners Cohorts (CLC) program. As Chair of the Education Committee, Jennifer Leeper was central to securing a record-breaking 75% state reimbursement for the new Dwight School—far above the town's traditional 28% rate—saving Fairfield taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Now she is rising to the challenge again: the fight against Big Tech in our schools.

In February this year, Jennifer led the first hearing for HB-5149 An Act Concerning Phone Free Schools. This legislation aims to restrict personal digital devices throughout the academic day with reasonable exceptions (students with IEPs or medical plans) while ensuring school districts do not rely solely on social media channels to communicate essential information to families.

For years, parents and staff have spoken up against the ubiquitous presence of cellphones in our schools. I serve as a member of the Digital Wellness Committee for Fairfield's PTA Council. Last year we helped lay the groundwork for local change by advocating for a ban on all cellphones and personal digital devices from the first bell to the last. Since it went into effect last October, the change has been overwhelmingly positive. The Fairfield Board of Education heard the results of the Cell Phone Free Initiative Review at the June 9, 2026 meeting, according to the impact assessment: "Staff feedback indicates that students are more engaged, more attentive, and more connected to one another and to their teachers." Jennifer has been there supporting our efforts along the way, answering countless emails, providing invaluable feedback, and helping to connect our movement to other leaders across the state.

In August, Jennifer co-hosted a webinar with Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a cognitive neuroscientist and author of The Digital Delusion, How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning. In partnership with Screen Smart Initiative, she hosted a Virtual Town Hall on Sept 23rd: Rethinking Screens In Our Schools. She knows that community engagement is key to helping solve this uphill battle against Big Tech. She is not backing down, if anything in her own words when talking about how frustrating it was to have her House Bill this past session die on the Senate Floor to officially ban cell phones in schools statewide when it had bipartisan support in the House, she said: "You would think that it would make me give up, but if anything it makes me fight harder." Apparently, the CT State Board of Education agreed with Jenn because they passed a bell-to-bell cellphone ban in their state guidance in August.

Someone with this persistence and focus is the kind of person we need representing us, someone who doesn't back down when the well-being of our students is on the line. Please Re-Elect Jennifer Leeper for State Representative in District 132. She has a proven track record of leading the change from Fairfield for all of Connecticut.

-Lauren Effron, Chair of the Dwight School Building Committee, Digital Wellness advocate