I am writing this petition on behalf of my son, Ben. He is 12 years old, in 5th grade, and he is deaf. There is technology and assistance that would allow him to have equal access to education, and he is not receiving it from his school district. He struggles every day. Imagine wearing noise cancelling headphones in a classroom and then be expected to perform on the same level as your hearing classmates. This is what Ben has to do, as well as others like him. We went to the school during the 2012-13 school year and made a request for captioning equipment as well as other ideas to make the classroom accessible, and we were met with skepticism and ignorance on the subjects of his disability and accessibility. As time passes, my child sits in a classroom desperately trying to keep up with lectures and student interaction, which is so important to cognitive development and education, but also leaves him fatigued, frustrated and with headaches. Even those of you who may not be familiar with deafness or any other disability, you encounter accessibility for the disabled every day. Ramps, railings and special parking for those in wheel chairs, Braille on ATMs and “beeps” at crosswalks for the visually impaired and alarm systems that can be seen and heard are all examples of everyday accessibility that we take for granted. These are some of the ways that people with disabilities are able to be productive members of our society. My son needs access to technology that converts the words spoken in the classroom into text and displaying them on a computer screen so that he can follow the teacher’s lecture, other students’ questions, class discussion or other oral information presented in the classroom. Captioning captures all pertinent oral information presented in the classroom. This technology would allow Ben to use his voice in class to participate in discussions which are critical for his education and for improving voice quality so that others will more readily understand his speech. Captioning technology will allow Ben to develop oral vocabulary and hone the ability to “listen”. As Ben puts meaning to sounds with the help of this tool he will be learning to communicate independently. Ben does not use sign language. He is in a very small percentage of the Deaf community that chooses the spoken word. This is the mode of communication that he has chosen. If Ben did sign, he would have an interpreter. Would it not stand to reason that the school district would allow him interpretation in his mode of communication? Even students who use sign language often prefer speech to text in an educational setting. Please help Ben achieve his dreams by giving him a fair and appropriate education. He is a loving intelligent young person, who without this technology has very little chance of achieving his potential.

OUR SCHOOLS ARE ALREADY OVERCROWDED; MORE HIGH-DENSITY DEVELOPMENT WILL MAKE SCHOOL OVERCROWDING WORSE. Development at the proposed densities for Sub-units S1 and M2 would result in 72-96 additional houses or town homes to be served by Willow Springs ES and Eagle View ES. Willow Springs was built for 750 students, currently has 1000 students and is projected to increase by 15% by 2018-2019 without any new development. Eagle View is projected to be at 118% capacity by 2018-2019. Both schools feed into Fairfax HS, which is projected to be at 107% capacity by 2018-2019. (http://www.fcps.edu/fts/planning/maps/index.shtml) THERE IS NO PLAN FOR ADDRESSING SCHOOL OVERCROWDING; MORE HIGH-DENSITY DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT A PLAN IS IRRESPONSIBLE. The staff report calls for passing the buck to Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS): “To mitigate impacts of the proposed development … FCPS would look to the developer and support from the county at the time of rezoning.” Until citizens recently brought it to their attention, the School Board was unaware of the proposed change to the Comprehensive Plan, and has no plans to build new schools in this area. FIXED RESOURCES AT SCHOOLS MAKE MORE EXPANSION THROUGH TRAILERS IMPOSSIBLE. Both Willow Springs and Eagle View already have a semi-permanent network of trailers. Additional trailers are not an option because of fixed resources which cannot be expanded, such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, land, and parking. LEE HIGHWAY IS ALREADY GRIDLOCKED; MORE HIGH-DENSITY DEVELOPMENT WILL MAKE BAD TRAFFIC EVEN WORSE. This section of Lee Highway is already at a standstill during rush hour, and this impacts our quality of life negatively -- it makes it hard to get to our jobs, get home to our families, and drive our kids to school and extracurricular activities. Our school buses regularly have difficulty arriving on time due to traffic. For these reasons, we urge you to maintain the densities of the current Comprehensive Plan at this time. Thank you for your consideration of our petition.

I want to transfer schools but I can't due to overpopulation at vandeventer middle school. I'm having a hard time at my new school and I really want to go back since it's my last year of middle school.

Our son Hunter, has turned his life around and wants to continue going to school and the board of Elizabethtown area school district will not allow him to attend because of a past expulsion. They didn't take the time to see what he has accomplished since the incident and say they are not obligated to help due to his age. Anyone who knows the man that he has become can attest to the fact that he deserves the chance to continue his education...

We are a collective of nursing students attending New Community Workforce in Newark. We've attended this program for over two years and done well in all of our classes until now. But now that we're ready to graduate, a majority of us were given failing grades on our final exams. We were told that 100% of our class failed the obstetrics and psychiatry exams. We were also told that 60% of us failed our pediatrics exam - which is shocking because this was a take home exam. But what's worse, we've been denied access to our individual test results so we don't know which answers we got wrong or right. Our objective is to review our final exams before we take them again on October 20th. But this impossible because New Community refuses to give them back to us. We have all studied hard for these final exams - so how is it that the majority of us failed? We believe something is wrong! Please sign our petition and demand that CEO Richard Rohrman provide each of us with our original exams. We also want New Community to create a transparent process for current and future students so we are better prepared to achieve success in our chosen fields!

Adopting the APS staff proposal to create a 1,300 seat neighborhood middle school at the Wilson School will address increased middle school crowding projected over the next five years. It will provide urgently needed capacity as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible, while avoiding moving additional students and programs, subjecting students and staff to construction, and sacrificing much-needed recreational space.

Ongoing concern over reliability of the PARCC test due to insufficient time for field testing, in addition to inadequate technology to administer the test and lack of Common Core readiness in many schools across the state, support the view that this test is not yet ready for statewide, mandatory administration. Illinois is not alone in its opposition to this test in its current form. In fact, of the 23 states originally planning to use PARCC, only 8 states plus the District of Columbia are using both the elementary and high school versions of the PARCC. (Three additional states will use PARCC for some students.) ISBE needs to provide an appropriate education for all Illinois children; therefore, the PARCC test must be suspended for the 2014-2015 school year. We recommend the following modifications of the Illinois state 2014-2015 assessment schedule upon receipt of a waiver from the DOE: ---Delay the PARCC until the test is improved and validated through additional field testing ---Continue the use of other nationally-normed reading/math tests in 2014-15, such as NWEA MAP and ACT ---Move ACT high school testing back to its original date in April (currently early March) *************** Nosotros, los ciudadanos de Illinois, presentamos una petición a la Junta Educativa del Estado de Illinois (ISBE por sus siglas en inglés) para adquirir una exención del Departamento de Educación de EE.UU (USDOE por sus siglas en inglés) con el fin de aplazar la implementación de la prueba PARCC (por sus siglas en inglés) para el año escolar 2014-2015. Preocupación constante por fiabilidad de la prueba PARCC debido a la falta de tiempo en las pruebas de campo, además de una tecnología inadecuada para administrar la prueba y la falta de preparación de Common Core en muchas escuelas en todo el estado, apoyar el punto de vista que esta prueba todavía no está lista para por todo el estado, administración obligatoria. Illinois no está sola en su oposición a esta prueba en su forma actual. De hecho, de los 23 estados que originalmente planificaron el uso de la prueba PARCC, sólo 8 estados y el Distrito de Columbia han utilizado la prueba PARCC en las escuelas primarias y secundarias. (Otros tres estados utilizarán PARCC para algunos estudiantes.) ISBE debe proporcionar una educación apropiada para todos los niños de Illinois; por lo tanto, debe suspenderse la prueba PARCC para el año escolar 2014-2015. Recomendamos las siguientes modificaciones de la programación de evaluación de Illinois estado 2014-2015 a partir de recibir la exención del DOE: --- Retrasar la prueba PARCC hasta que se ha mejorado y validado a través de otras pruebas de campo. --- Continuar con el uso de otras pruebas de nivel nacional de lectura / matemáticas en 2014-15, como las pruebas NWEA, MAP y ACT (por sus siglas en inglés). --- Mover la prueba ACT de las escuelas secundarias a su fecha original para Abril (actualmente principios de Marzo)

The Connecticut River Academy has enforced a new rule called the 70% rule for home work. The 70% rule requires that you do 70% of your homework or you automatically fail the class regardless of your current grade. For example, if you do not do 4 home work assignments in a class you fail the class for the quarter even if my actual calculated grade is an -A. Many of our students are balancing school, sports, family, work etc. and every now and then things can get in the way of us doing our homework. Many of our upperclassmen are taking college classes at Goodwin, and the college to high school home work ratio can be too much to handle for many of them, causing them to put their high school homework on hold to complete college work and sustain the grades they need to pass those classes. The missed high school homework is counted against them and they are potentially failing their classes. It is unfair of the school to ask students to put sports, family, work and other activities on hold because they cannot miss between 3 to 4 homework assignments in a quarter. As a student body, many of us think this new rule is completely unjust and want this rule to be removed. If we can abolish this outrageous rule, homework will go back to being 10% of our grades and students can actually have the ability to pass their class even if homework becomes an issue. We need a total of 200 signatures to put up a fight against this policy. Please support the cause.

Throughout the school year, students can be under a great deal of pressure. I think one day off per quarter without penalty would be a good way to let kids get a break at their leisure and refocus on school.

Philadelphia's School Reform Commission cancelled its teachers' contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, with no warning, in a unanimous vote cast on Monday. I thought back to the time last April when I got the call: my 6 year-old daughter was having an asthma attack. “Take her to the nurse!” I told them, “the nurse has her inhaler.” “There is no nurse today, and it’s locked in her office. Only she has the key.” “WHY IS THERE NO NURSE?” “We don’t have a nurse on Tuesdays or Thursdays.” The reason there are no nurses in my daughter’s school two days a week is because of the School Reform Commission, run by Tom Corbett, that has taken away funds from nurses, libraries, and other activities that our children need and deserve. The teachers shouldn't have to pay for his bad deeds. We should be taxing frackers instead of fracking with teachers. We need to get the SRC out and take back control of Philly’s schools for our community.

The youth of Philadelphia are outraged as they continue to struggle for a fully funded quality education. This includes hearing the voices of students who are hurt most by these systematic genocidal policies imposed on them. The youth leaders of Youth United for Change recognize that budget cuts to full time nurses have left two students to die on the Philadelphia School District's time. We urge that folks stand up for what's best for the well-being of young people by returning local control of our school board to the education stakeholders of Philadelphia who care. We stand in solidarity with our teacher allies in reinstating the PFT contract. For too long, Philadelphia has not made decisions on education policies with the best intent in mind for students of color in our city. This has also been a district that has faced privatization attacks from right-wing school reformist experiments. We do not share this struggle alone as urban districts across the nation are under attack and it is time that this government takes ownership of the continuous oppression of youth of color at the local, state, and federal levels.

I personally feel physical education class is targeted toward the more athletically gifted students, aka "gym class heroes." An alternative choice would allow those who are not gifted a chance at getting the exercise they need. I personally would much rather work out my muscles than stand around watching a few students run back and forth on a field. Sometimes I feel very intimidated when 6 foot tall jocks push past me to retrieve the ball; dancing is something I do outside of school so therefore I am much more comfortable dancing than running after a ball I don't know what to do with.