I live in Culver City and have two kids in our schools. All of our children would benefit from our schools being properly funded. We need real money for that, not billboards.

For years I have been concerned of how short our children’s lunch is way too short. It's stressful on them. They do not have time to eat even half of their lunch. On an average a child will have 8-15 (it's closer to 8-10) many parents are concerned with what is taking place with all the children. Standing in the lunch line is awful. A change needs to take place within the lunchroom as well to speed up the process. Children are being excused for recess while many students are still trying to eat their lunch. It then becomes a mad dash to get out to recess. I have personally seen what takes place in my school's lunch room on a daily basis. I have taken time stamped photos as proof. My two children who attend Arbor Heights School (it is a wonderful school) have always complained how there is no time to eat lunch. They bring home mostly full lunch boxes all the time. Many other parents complain about the same thing. The kids also say being late to lunch is a common occurrence. I sat at the tables the other day. I asked the kids questions, such as how long is the lunch line. They all said that the line can go all the way to the other side of the lunch room. A child in that lunch line would really suffer by the time they found a seat and sat down to eat. Many other schools are affected by this short lunch issue as well. In fact this issue seams to be district wide. Change must occur NOW. The Seattle School District has said it will take many months to come up with a solution. I disagree. Trim 5 minutes off the day and extend the day to 3pm. I have discussed this with a few teachers already. it's really quite simple. Of course we will be told it is actually quite complicated. That gives them time to do nothing, or pretend they are working on it. Short lunches are a slap in the face to our young children. It’s an outrage after you really start hearing the children’s and parents stories. We need to start being more mindful of the care of our little ones. Our wonderful teachers are spread too thin. They need our help. Together we can ALL make a difference- for the kids! Please take the time to support this very important cause. Our children’s health and well being is at stake. https://www.facebook.com/groups/LunchMatters/permalink/1546694718905348/ A proposed plan- Lunch is now 20 min Recess is now 20 min On a larger teacher time segment (5 minutes deducted from teachers daily schedule) Extend the school day to 3pm (10 minutes added) That will make lunch 30 minutes and recess 20 minutes with a 5 minute grace period to actually get to lunch on time or for kids to wash their hands. Problem solved? Peace

As part of the HSE school redistricting initiative our neighborhood has been proposed as one that may split schools. In addition, the schools proposed for our children are a wholesale difference from current state and involve much longer bus times and 2-3x greater distance from our home. Especially at the intermediate/junior high level, it is so important that kids can stay together as a group that feed to HSE. Right now, all the options have our kids going to schools that mostly funnel to FHS (in some cases a 65/35 split which is entirely unacceptable).

On September 24, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) sent a letter to Teach for America on behalf of their 150 local student chapters across the country. USAS explained that they are launching groundbreaking campaigns to sever institutional ties between our universities and TFA, unless they agree to move away from lending a hand to corporate behemoths like Walmart and Goldman Sachs in destroying our public education system, and move towards building a better, fully public education system. Students are asking TFA to agree to the following: 1. TFA must only operate in areas where there are actual teacher shortages, instead of pursuing aggressive expansion that displaces lifelong teachers. 2. TFA must give aspiring teachers adequate education and training. 3. TFA must cut ties with corporations like Walmart and Goldman Sachs. Student leaders from across the country are meeting with TFA to see how they respond to our national campaign demands in person. Sign the petition to show you support students’ work and encourage TFA to change.

On September 12, a group of MAP teachers and parents submitted a charter school petition for the Ross Valley Charter School to the Ross Valley School District. The Charter Petition was unanimously denied by RVSD Trustees upon consideration of the 27 page RVSD staff report. Although the charter petition will “partially convert Manor School,” potentially bumping K5 teachers and families to other RVSD schools, petitioners did not involve either group in the process, nor did they obtain the requisite signatures of 50% of the Manor teachers. Keep MAP a RVSD program!

AP Biology is required to be a three semester course. Therefore, AP Biology is broken into two courses: AP Biology and AP Bio Lab. Since both of these courses have AP level work and prepare students for the AP exam, they should both have AP GPA credits. It is wrong for an AP class such as AP Bio Lab to not have the same AP level credits as AP Bio. Teachers have tried to fix this, but nothing has changed . The only way to fix this is for the students to demand AP credits.

Voice your support for eliminating the Senior Project effective with the graduation class of 2015. The State Legislature and State School Board administration have dropped this requirement. The Highline School District Superintendent recommended this project be dropped effective with the 2015 graduating class and the written recommendation was never put before the school board for a vote as scheduled on 11/5. It mysteriously disappeared and there is no leadership or clear communication on this matter. If you believe our seniors have enough work to do to meet district graduation requirements, hold up their GPA's, and do college applications and interviews, support this petition and email [email protected].

KPHS is growing rapidly and we have outgrown our current setting. We have purchased land for our new school for the upcoming 2015-16 and are petitioning the county for approval for special use (Private School).

Do you want an entire generation of children using textbooks that call into question the existence of climate change? Well, we’ve got two weeks to make sure that doesn’t happen. Two of the biggest textbook publishers in the country — Pearson and McGraw-Hill Education — have proposed new social studies textbooks in Texas that include inaccurate and misleading information about climate change. Instead of learning the truth, a generation of students could be reading propaganda like this in their textbook: • McGraw-Hill Education (World Cultures & Geography) – includes information pulled directly from the Heartland Institute, a polluter-funded advocacy group infamous for its anti-climate change propaganda. • Pearson (Social Studies K-5) – Tells students, “Scientists disagree about what is causing climate change.” If those books are approved in Texas on November 21, climate-change denial could find its way into textbooks around the nation. Help convince publishers to correct these problems.

We ask that you move quickly to eliminate the continued yearly tuition increases and use the language of the law in an already deregulated state to speed up the process and avoid potential problems of a weakly written bill.

The School Board aims to finalize a secondary school site by November 18. A choice school at the Wilson site would relieve over-crowding at Swanson and Williamsburg middle schools, while fulfilling community interest in a STEM school feeder to the Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology High School (currently only about 15 of the hundreds of APS students that apply each year are admitted) and/or a language immersion program. APS enrollment has grown by 19 percent in the last five years and is expected to grow at 2.7 percent every year for the next ten years. The Wilson site is just one piece of the puzzle, but preliminary APS analysis found it was likely to be the fastest place to add new seats with best construction value and least disruption to students during construction. Regardless of the first site chosen, APS will continue to plan for renovations and additions at other sites to meet the growing student population.

The children that live in the neighborhood need a safe place to play, climb and explore nature.