Dear Mr. President, In the recent years, the Arts have been eliminated from schools, as Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, and better test scores seem to be the primary focus. While parents are forced to work extra jobs, or have taken pay cuts; the elimination of these programs from schools due to budget cuts, have encouraged the children will grow up with limited creativity, innovation, and problem solving skills. The arts promote, develop,encourage, and provide a safe, exploring experience for children to practice skills that are vital to the rest of their education. Skills like science and math will be effected because of their difficulty in solving complex problems, as they will struggle with the ability to creatively think out the answers. The effect of the arts (i.e., dance, theater, music, art) on children cannot be denied or ignored. Without these programs both during school and after school, the child is subjected to limited activities, primarily video games (mostly promoting violence), and watching TV, (primarily action and violent shows.) Hours of this type of violence educates our children to become accustom and accept violence. There is too much violence being caused by teens and young adults. Children and teens need to become more involved in programs that demonstrate positive support and supervision, and encourage the children to think creatively. This should help them to pursue a life and develop into an adult who is bright, educated, innovative, and cultured.

I am a teacher and I know full well the complete lack of security present in most and particularly elementary schools bec the few guards present im schools are there to break up fights not to protect the children. Most schools are easily entered and only guarded by nonunion untrained personnel on a temp basis. Aren't out children our most valuable possesions? We collect them all together with no protection everyday not counting us teachers who have been faced with ppl who come off the streets at all times of the day. This ks nothing new. I have never been in a properly secured school. Shouldnt the govnt be spending as much money protecting ut schools as they spend checking out luggage at an airport?

Keeping guns out of our schools and keeping our children safe.

We need to stop this school shootings. I feel that mental illness in teens and young adolescents goes untreated. Parents, family members and friends of mentally ill or suffering children need to be educated on their behaviors and what to look for.

in the wake of recent mass shootings in our public schools i am not asking for gun control because guns do not kill, the people who use them do, but for security measures to be heightened our Public schools on a state level(armed guards) or on federal level (homeland security efforts)

Let your state representatives know that you support whole child education in our schools to prevent tragedies such as Sandy Hook Elementary. Give us the choice in deciding to raise our children as a village instead of preventing us from doing so with unyielding and unfair tax caps on education while more and more unfunded mandates rain down upon schools.

As we all grieve and mourn the loss from today's tragedy that took place in Newton, CT, I can't help but think of why the public places we must utilize to make a living and for our children to recieve an education are not required to have a certain level or system for their protection. We not only need The White House or Congress to pay attention to gun laws, but to implement a system or demand public places such as schools AND daycare centers to put something in place where people aren't able to have access to these places that shouldn't have it. Places such as banks and The White House ensures they have no trespassers; should this not be the same for our children whom rely on us to protect them. Please sign this petition requesting Congress to assist with this problem of inadequate protection in our schools and daycare facilities.

Please encourage President Barack Obama to pass a Federal law requiring Armed guards at every educational institution . The federal court buildings have Armed guards. It is time to protect our children's lives to the same degree. Every child's life is just as precious as the employees of the court system. Please help prevent another tragedy like this from occurring. I can never understand the pain and suffering each parent or loved one effected by this tragedy feels and I am sure if you could prevent this you would. Only a second of your time signing this can make a change to protect our loved ones.

Our children are dying at a rampant rate and we continue to pass laws and build fortresses to protect them. Please let's put Prayer back in our schools as another assured way to protect our children!

Mass shootings at schools, like the one that just occurred in Connecticut, could be reduced if there was a school resource officer assigned to every school in the nation. This should be a policy that all Americans could agree to. More on the policy here: http://rems.ed.gov/docs/DOJ_AssigningPoliceOfficers.pdf

Student debt has eclipsed $1 trillion in this country. This debt is primarily interest on loans made through US colleges and universities. This petition asks that Congress create and the President sign into law a bill abolishing all past, present and future interest on all student loan debt. The US Government should not be in the business of entering into contracts with private business to turn a profit off of our young people just starting out or those who seek to be retrained so that they may remain viable members of the US workforce.

When I file my taxes every year, I can only deduct about $5,000 from my income for student loan interest. There is no cap on how much I can deduct for interest on a mortgage and I'm sure there are other unlimited deductions. So why is the system biased against students? I pay more to loans each year than I do for taxes or my mortgage. This has to affect millions of Americans by keeping their AGI too high.