In the information age, all Mississippians need fiber-to-the home broadband and our EPA is the only one who can do it for 100% of us. On July 18th 2020, FIFTEEN Mississippi electric co-ops submitted applications for over $73,000,000 in grant funds. However, our EPA was not one of them.

In the information age, all Mississippians need fiber-to-the home broadband and our EPA is the only one who can do it for 100% of us. On July 18th 2020, FIFTEEN Mississippi electric co-ops submitted applications for over $73,000,000 in grant funds. However, our EPA was not one of them.

John Lewis is the real American hero and patriot. Rename the bridge!

Parents, students, teachers and school employees want to be back in brick and mortar schools as soon as it is safely possible. We are calling on you, our county commissioners to shut down all non-essential businesses immediately to slow the community spread of COVID. We are calling for a substantial increase in testing and contract tracing. We are calling for maximum transparency on COVID data, including which local child care centers are dealing with a COVID outbreak. We are calling for a carefully measured reopening that does not begin until we have 14 days of declining cases in a row AND a positivity rate of 5% or less. We are calling for financial and community support for furloughed workers so they can continue to provide for their families during the necessary shut down. We are calling for a moratorium on evictions and rent relief for furloughed workers and affected businesses. We are calling for a county wide limit on all indoor gatherings to 10 people or less. We are calling for adequate PPE protection for our social services workers so that they can continue supporting families and investigating abuse allegations during the shut down. We are calling for adequate PPE for our front line healthcare workers so they can safely take care of our community.

We don’t want to set CITA apart from OHS, adding Osbornes name to the marquee will bring a sense of unity and pride to the school and community.

While high tech companies and corporations are profiting upwards of millions to billions of dollars during the pandemic, CTCs are preparing for the upcoming academic year with furloughs, laying off faculty, and discontinuing tenure tracks. Our CTCs and their faculty, staff, and students deserve better, especially our students of color. While long term investments centering racial equity support our CTCs and students, austerity will only hurt them. Our CTCs have always been pillars of higher education in Washington state, but they are now even more important as our state faces the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences. Currently, 1 in 7 Washington workers are unemployed. As more and more workers are being pushed into unemployment, we need both a strong workforce and support for our most vulnerable communities who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. CTCs can be the key to recovery for both Washington’s economy and its communities. Investing in CTCs keeps CTC faculty and staff employed while providing the resources needed to train and retrain Washington’s students and workforce. We urge state Senators and Representatives to consider CTC budgets from an equity lens, especially as CTCs provide more accessible resources to Washington’s communities of color. 45% of Washington CTC students are also students of color, and COVID-19 has already had a disproportionate effect on people of color. Systemically racist forces such as redlining, racial housing segregation, and limited resources on reservations contribute to higher rates of infection in these communities. Budget cuts due to COVID-19 would only affect these communities even more negatively. Washington’s CTCs serve 60% of our students while only receiving 40% of the state funding for higher education. Our CTCs already receive less of a share of the state funding compared to private institutions. CTCs are not only an affordable source of education for communities of color as well as low income students, but they also provide the support they need through programs such as TRIO, diversity and multicultural programs, and academic and career counseling. We also know that when budgets are cut at CTCs, diversity programs are cut first. It’s already difficult to attend school, especially as a student of color, and these programs are vital resources for students to find a supportive community while in school. Budget cuts will lead to both the defunding of these resources vital to student success and an increase in tuition, making CTCs even more inaccessible at an especially critical time. Our students need investment now more than ever.

The United States harbors an enduring legacy of anti-Asian racism, from the murderous violence of the so-called "Yellow Peril" in the 19th and 20th centuries to the surge in hate crimes committed against Asian Americans in the wake of COVID-19. The continued use of "oriental" in the profession of East Asian Medicine in the US perpetuates this injustice. In 2016, the term was removed from all US federal regulations through a bill authored by New York State Representatives Grace Meng (D) and Hakeem Jeffries (D). It received unanimous, bipartisan congressional support and was signed into law by President Obama. The bill also struck the terms “Negro,” “Eskimo,” and “Spanish surname” (to honor Latinx folks), which are the associates of "oriental." Our profession is dangerously out of step with what progress has been made outside our community. We will fail in our institutional anti-racism efforts before they begin if we persist in using this racist, obsolete term.

Children are at higher risk for contracting the illness as well as every staff member in the school system leading to more and more illness and possible death with exposure of the virus and bringing home that exposure to each persons family. If one person is infected and they are in that classroom, now all the students in that classroom are exposed, as well as the teacher. If that student goes to another classroom or nurses office, now those students and those faculty members have been exposed and it will just keep spreading. Then our now exposed children come home to their family, that family member goes to work and now has exposed every person at their job. It is safer for our children to be home using a virtual classroom. They aren’t being exposed to any of the illness being home.

A policy proposal was recently published that calls for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to address racism through anti-racist reforms. You can read the full proposal here: https://www.slideshare.net/TimothyBerry8/an-anti-racist-west-point In response to this proposal, West Point’s Inspector General (IG) has started a “comprehensive review of all matters involving race at the Academy.” However, the results of this review are not publicly available. Additionally, many of the actions recommended in the proposal can be acted upon without waiting for the results of this investigation. We request that West Point: 1. Publicly acknowledge that the Academy faces challenges with racism that harms Cadets, that this does not align with Academy values, and that it will adopt changes to eliminate racism. 2. Immediately adopt the actions not under the IG purview. 3. Publicly share the IG report and ensure its recommendations are instituted by the end of 2020. If you agree that West Point must swiftly begin to take action in building towards an anti-racist West Point, you can express your support by signing this petition.

Parents, in times such as these, we become the voice of reason for our children. We are their protectors; the individuals they rely on to prioritize their education, health, and well-being. With the rise of COVID-19 in Florida and the Pensacola area recently being placed into the top 10 epicenters for contracting the disease, our children with health issues, such as the immunocompromised and asthmatics, need us to be their voices more than ever before. The options the Santa Rosa County School system have put in place are not structured to create an environment to educate our children due to the coronavirus pandemic. Rather, they highlight education options which were already in place prior to the breakout of the virus. This has caused thousands of families in the district to choose between their children’s mental health, physical health, and education—a decision a parent should never be asked to make. Thus, this petition has been created to highlight the lack of reasonable options for Santa Rosa County Children and the their parents and to urge the district not to make decisions based off of a survey created in the middle of the summer with out-of-date statistics, but to rework the way the 2020-2021 year will be managed based on current concerns by the district’s families and teachers. The Santa Rosa County School district has given three options; Full-Time Brick and Mortar Schooling with COVID-19 restrictions (which does not include the prioritization of masks), online schooling though Santa Rosa Online (which does not connect students to their brick and mortar teachers, rather, provides different teachers through a more rigorous program that admittedly is not designed for students who need more assistance), and homeschooling. Other school districts have shown that there are, indeed, more options available besides the three that Santa Rosa School District has offered parents. Two that we would like to bring up to the district are below: 1) Distance Learning: Allowing children to learn from home exclusively with the teacher’s assistance from the brick and mortar school they would have originally attended. This will allow students with IEP’s and/or health issues to learn safely from home while getting the education they deserve, the comfort of a face they recognize, and an environment that will not risk their health. 2) Hybrid Learning: Allowing students through logistical planning to spend certain days at their brick and mortar school while splitting the other half of their week into distance learning. This will allow teachers to better control the environment of their classrooms with smaller class sizes, but also allow children and teachers to have face-to-face contact with their students. This would greatly reduce the spread but allow students to have a sense of normalcy—necessary for a child’s mental health. Parents, through this petition, are asking to be heard to discuss other options, such as those listed above. Together, we can create an environment where we do not have to choose between our children’s mental and physical health and education. We owe it to the children of Santa Rosa County.

On campuses across the country—Maryland, Ohio State, Clemson, LSU, Kansas State, and more—dozens of student-athletes are testing positive for coronavirus as they begin training for Fall sports. It's becoming clear that in order to protect students and staff, Fall sports must be postponed. More and more college conferences and schools are postponing all Fall sports, and the NCAA needs to provide leadership to protect their students during this pandemic, instead of letting money drive their decision. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) generated $867 million in 2019, but it can't put profits ahead of the safety of their student-athletes. The major conferences that make up the NCAA are making plans to get football players and other student-athletes back on the field to make sure money from its lucrative television and marketing deals isn't lost. This is dangerous to the players who will have to come in close contact with their teammates and opponents at a time when American professional sports are struggling to start-up. Two teams from Major League Soccer had to drop out due to COVID outbreaks among players and paid professional players are deciding to opt-out of NBA and MLB seasons because of concern for catching the coronavirus. The National Junior College Athletic Association is expected to move its Fall sports to the Spring this week, and last week, The Ivy League canceled Fall sports. Colleges like Morehouse have done the same, canceling Fall sports to protect their students. It's clear that postponing Fall sports is the only responsible decision to make. As the U.S. continues to grapple with a pandemic that doesn't respect city or state borders, the NCAA needs to do what's right and make sure college athletes aren't put at risk so that NCAA and their partners can make millions. SOURCES: "National Junior College Athletic Association expected to move football season to spring," July 12, 2020, ESPN espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29452386/national-junior-college-athletic-association-expected-move-football-season-spring "Ivy League Places All Sports on Hold Until January," July 8, 2020, The New York Times nytimes.com/2020/07/08/sports/ncaafootball/ivy-league-fall-sports-football-coronavirus.html

This modification now requires in-person class attendance to remain in the United States and continue in academic programs. These modifications are illogical as universities are providing online instruction in response to the medical reality of airborne transmission of the COVID-19 virus. The Trump administration’s use of international students to force universities to provide in-person classes is cruel, reckless, and shortsighted. International students should not have to suffer the uncertainty of their educational future and residence within the U.S., due to a politically-motivated gambit centered upon economic goals that support President Trump’s re-election. International students enrich the learning experiences of fellow students with their intellect, the sharing of personal experiences, and the richness of varied viewpoints. They live and work in our communities helping local economies thrive, and they often return to their countries using the skills and knowledge they have gained to improve the lives of those around them. Through the relationships and professional networks they build, international students are a force for global diplomacy