Dear Jermaine Dawson, new CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools:

Welcome to Baltimore! As a cheerleader for the city and a mother of one of the young minds whose education you’ll now be in charge of, I’m rooting for you. An investment in your success is an investment in my son’s success.

So don’t let me down.

I see that you grew up in poverty with extreme hunger, like about a quarter of the children who will be under your academic power.

“I can identify with many of what our young people have to deal with just to go to school every day,” you told our reporters in an interview.

That’s important to me because you understand not only the significance of boosting academic performance but, seemingly, the humanity of your new charges and their parents. You will need to maintain awareness of that stark realization of their lives, in and out of the classroom. You have to understand the factors, like the hunger you have known, that make them less able to focus and function.

I think that shared experience with so many of these kids is an asset. You likely don’t see them as statistics or violent cautionary tales who can only learn at the end of threats and a viciously wielded baseball bat, a la Morgan Freeman’s Joe Clark in “Lean On Me.” I don’t want that.

I also like that your previous leadership has been mostly in predominantly Black school districts, from Birmingham, Alabama, to Philadelphia. These are places that, like Baltimore, have struggled with crime and poverty.

When my family and I moved back here in 2020, some people I know freaked out that we were going to be living in the city and that I was sending my son to public school. With the way some of them acted, you’d think I’d neglectfully kicked him and his school-approved khakis out in the Arctic on an ice floe with a laptop and a grenade.

I ignored them because I believed in the work your predecessor Sonja Santelises was doing before we arrived. In her decade in Baltimore, she saw test scores rise, investment in the rehabilitation of crumbling school buildings — including the one my child attends — and has been recognized nationally as a change maker. I wanted my kid to be a part of that growing momentum, surrounded by people who look like him.

And while Santelises’ background could not be more different than yours — she attended private schools and is Ivy League-educated — her life and way of doing things are no less authentically relevant. We have our share of bougieness around these parts, and she’s done amazingly. I’ve met her and seen how she’s ten toes down for these kids.

Now it’s your turn, and I hope that your approach works just as well.

“This is a ministry for me: to ensure that every single child in City Schools is afforded the same opportunities that I’ve been given,” you told The Banner. And I believe you because I have no choice, do I? I’m not moving, I can’t afford private school and I don’t want to.

We all need this to work, for you to take the baton Santelises is handing you and run with it. Here are a couple of things I’m looking for from you as a parent, a city schools graduate and a resident.

Be present and available.

I read that you are expected to be more public than your predecessor, which I imagine means you’re going to get a lot more feedback. Baltimore isn’t shy about that. I wonder if you’ll be like Mayor Brandon Scott, who’s out there on social media so much that people tag him in their requests for shoveling, trash cans and suggestions for good crab cakes. I love that he’s responsive, but you don’t have to be out here doing TikTok dances. Just make sure we know that you’re listening.

Keep investing in safety.

This includes not just the safety of our buildings, but also the safety of our students as they travel to them. The Banner has written a lot about how the transportation system is failing our kids. We can’t raise test scores if they can’t get to class. I’d like to see how you address that.

Expect the best from these kids, because they’ll give it to you.

I think that test scores have gone up, in part, because educators believe students are capable of doing better — of meeting and even exceeding expectations. So many others (like the people who told me not to send my kid to these schools) just read the headlines, watch “The Wire” and assume the younger generations are lost causes. They are not. These children, as Whitney sang, are the future, and how they learn will determine how they do in school and after graduation.

You seem to believe this. I wish you good luck, a thick skin and a lot of energy. You’re going to need it.

We’re holding you to it.