In the world where cultural history is disappearing every day, I believe the craft rich India beautifully made traditional objects must be preserved. Museums, caretakers of these crafts, must be supported and sustained to make history and traditions available to future generations. Leadership and foresight is needed. Smithsonian National Museum of American Indian, built 20 years back has more than million objects of Native Americans, American Indians, that are cared, respected, showcased and preserved. I find this incredibly short sighted and should be stopped.

When I graduated from high school, I did not know how to grow my own food. The majority of Hawaii's students graduate yearly having no acquired skills of self sustainability. Stop sending our graduates into the workforce without the skills necessary to self sustain themselves and their families.

I have three children, two of whom were given devices for which they have no demonstrated need. Arlington has wonderful teachers. They deserve a 1:1 program that has been developed to meet their needs and implemented with sufficient training for them and sufficient transparency for the rest of the community.

Cambridge teachers feel that the over emphasis on testing and data collection is pulling them away from the creative, engaging teaching and learning that their students need and deserve. As Cambridge parents and community members, we wholeheartedly support our public school teachers as they advocate for the children in our community.

For the fifth year in a row, SASD is faced with making deep cuts in our schools because of a broken state funding system that is based on politics rather than on what it actually costs to educate children. In the past 4 years, SASD has eliminated more than 40 full-time teachers and support staff from our schools just to balance the budget. This year we face another massive budget deficit as a result of inadequate state funding. Any additional cuts in programs and services in SASD will have a negative impact on every child in the school district. We need our lawmakers to fix the broken state funding system for education this year —our children cannot afford to lose more from their schools. Our state lawmakers must invest additional state resources into schools so that SASD will will not need to make additional cuts this year and instead be able to begin to restore cuts to programs and services that we have made in recent years and put in place the full set of programs and services our children need.

I'm starting this because entitlement is poison, just because you have a complaint or don't agree with someone doesn't mean you can petition them to lose their job.

The PERS ruling means more teacher layoffs, larger class sizes and shorter school years. We need to block this year's kicker and work towards reforming the law so that we may someday have a stable enough funding source to plan ahead and make long-term investments in our future.

I feel the need for the Drama Department to have more of the basic supplies that we never get. Heck, we even need to fight for our stage half the time! We're just asking for some backdrops or decent lighting, maybe an actual fund that some of the other extracurricular activities get. Mr. Walters is an amazing drama teacher and he as well as the drama department really go under the radar and are un-appreciated half the time.

My daughter has been experiencing bullying from teachers in her school. She's upset about the teachers yelling at her and the other kids. She's told me the teachers tell her that her art work isn't good enough, and when she asks for help with a mean kid the principal ignores her. This has saddened me because I have spoken to principal, teachers, and supervisors with no improvements. I have spoken to other parents with the same concerns. I think that's what's wrong with society, we aren't taught in schools how to communicate when we are upset. Teachers teach by yelling and to discouraging creativity by staying within the line. These children are sent to school with trusting that they are getting the best, but is that the case?

The Utah Department of Education is proposing excellent new science standards for students in grades 6-8 that include scientifically accurate climate change education. While the new standards are overwhelmingly supported by science teachers and scientists, including our own local researchers and university educators, vocal anti-science activists are working to thwart them. These opponents are trying to create the impression that parents in Utah don't want students taught the evidence about human-caused climate change. If they are successful, Utah kids will be kept in the dark about the latest climate research from top scientists. As a climate researcher, an instructional designer, a university educator, but most importantly as a mother of a 5th grader at a Utah public school, that would be simply unacceptable. The Utah Board of Education will vote soon on whether to adopt the new standards. Can you help make sure our students and future decision makers are not denied a world-class science education? Please join me in asking the Utah Board of Education to adopt new school science standards that include climate science! Sincerely, Maria Groves M.A (Science and Instructional Technology), Geography PhD Candidate (Paleoclimatology), Mother, and member of Climate Parents

In response to recent events, the educators and parents of Westside Elementary School have heard "Schools, not Jails" chanted by protestors and comments from politicians like this one from Elijah Cummings, "[W]e must start working now to secure the safety of our children's futures." And yet, the City still plans to close Westside Elementary School, which is only a few blocks away from the heart of Baltimore's rioting and subsequent calls for change. Westside Elementary School serves meals to 300 children, has a high-quality pre-K program, houses a HeadStart program, and operates a weekly food pantry. These programs are in addition to K-5 instruction in literacy, mathematics and, most importantly for any child in America, the lessons in civics and American history that are taught in the building. Westside's teachers hail from some of the best colleges and universities in America including Villanova, Princeton, Lehman College, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Towson, Wesley, the University of Virginia, and the University of Chicago. Do not close this school because of a budget issue or because the people in the community were not politically proactive or visible in the ways that the City required. Before you take any action on the fate of the school, why not ask the community what it really thinks? Go door to door. Make phone calls. Come to the school and speak to parents daily. Conduct a study. Get a sense of the will of the people who live there. What do they want? Even if they decide they would rather close the school than renovate or rebuild it, their voices matter. As a teacher in the school, I can see the value that a small community school can have for a neighborhood. I also believe that schools have a sacred value to neighborhoods beyond test scores and attendance numbers. But that is only one opinion. And I don't think the City really knows what the parents and citizens of the neighborhood actually want. So, let's save Westside and start a conversation that includes all the key stakeholders, including the children.

We must act with urgency! As part of the receivership process, a local stakeholders group will be established. This group will make recommendations to the content of the turnaround plan in order to maximize the rapid improvement of the academic achievement of all students. This group must be convened within 30 days of the designation of chronically underperforming. We believe that HTA members selected to represent the entire membership must be determined by a membership vote instead of being appointed by the HTA President, HTA Executive Board or any other party.