I support a proposal for the Snoqualmie Valley School District to adopt an Informed Self-Select Math Policy, so families determine their child's 6th - 12th grade Math Pathway. Students must have passed their prior Math SBA test to be eligible. Please consider signing this petition if you want a voice in your child's choice.

Students are being forced to take tests that don't accurately represent their abilities, and they aren't able to show their abilities in real life situations. I have been made and am being made to take these tests that don't show how capable I am to learn and apply my abilities to real life situations.

As a former Special Education teacher, I believe the children of Flint,Michigan are going to need specially trained teachers to educate them. I am not sure if teaching colleges and universities are prepared. Now is the time to prepare those schools to train teachers. Those teachers need to be in the pipeline now.

Unfortunately, the Council Board has denied Social Pioneering Monthly from being chartered for Spring 2016 semester because of lack of "membership.” For those who don’t know, Social Pioneering Monthly is a monthly printed zine that is completely composed of student creative and original submissions regarding the relevant social problems of today. There is total freedom of expression and speech and opens up dialogue amongst the students. Its mission is to empower the students and spread awareness about social issues in order to encourage positive social change. We have been chartered for almost two years and have received a lot of positive feedback. Along with several other consequences, the biggest problem is not being able to receive any funding from the school to print the issues. Membership is a vague concept, but with 212 people who signed up for email notifications, 339 Facebook group members, and 121 total submissions in the 10 issues, "lack of membership" does not seem like a fair reason to deny the club's access to funding. The fundamental requirement to be a member of Social Pioneering Monthly is only to agree and support the mission of this club. By signing, you are saving Social Pioneering Monthly, and by doing so you are saving opportunities for people to promote positive social change.

PETITION BACKGROUND The St. Paul Public School District is in crisis. Daily headlines reporting student-on-student and student-on-teacher violence resulting from Valeria Silva’s failed disciplinary policies are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. We can no longer tolerate unsafe learning conditions in our schools. Our children have a right to safe and productive classrooms. Additionally, we can no longer tolerate the draconian methods of threat and intimidation of our dedicated teachers by the Silva administration. Teachers are afraid to speak out for fear of public reprisal, suspension and loss of their employment. Valeria Silva has lost the trust, faith and respect of too many education professionals in the district to be an effective leader. Furthermore, Silva’s continued incompetence is putting our teachers and children at great risk; as a result, families have begun to send their children out of the district in response to the downward spiral in the quality of St. Paul’s educational infrastructure. The children, parents, teachers, and community members of St. Paul deserve a Superintendent who leads with integrity and honor in Minnesota’s capital city. Silva is clearly not that leader. Her tenure as Superintendent has been nothing less than an embarrassment to the city of St. Paul, and a great travesty for our children, who deserve a high-quality education free from the threat of violence and harm. Our teachers and administrative staff deserve respect and the freedom to meet students’ needs with innovative, compassionate and supported instruction and assistance. We, the undersigned, demand Silva resign immediately. If she will not, we demand the School Board remove her and replace her with a competent leader with the skills, temperament, and personal integrity to provide effective leadership for the St. Paul Public School District.

This petition is created to send the citizens message to our school board of the vote of no confidence and lack of trust of the Valeria Silvia leadership team and the direction of her present reign. The massive exodus of families, her decisions on spending taxpayers monies, and the lack of direction with curriculum that focus our youth for college, school safety issues caused by her disrespect with cutting the support needed to manage or address these concerns that her leadership has caused. She has shown that she is inept and vengeful her approaches to address the above situations.

CEO Eric Gordon and the CMSD team walked away from negotiations with the Cleveland Teachers Union on February 17, 2016. With six weeks of previously agreed upon meeting dates remaining, the district chose to put the fate of the Cleveland schools in the hands of a third party Fact Finder. These negotiations are not about money. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District must acknowledge the real issues that members face every day and that these issues can be resolved. The teachers, paraprofessionals, and related service providers want the district to walk back to the table for serious discussions about real issues in our schools. The members of the Cleveland Teachers Union want their concerns heard, understood, and resolved. CEO Gordon and his team need to do their jobs and walk back to the table to negotiate.

NIFDI wants to know how various decisions regarding the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) were made. In July of 2013 ago we filed a Freedom of Information act (FOIA) request to the Department of Education, which oversees the WWC. Some, but not all of the requested information was received. The initial information revealed that the WWC suffers from a lack of transparency in their policies and guidelines, the conclusions they create in their reports can be misleading, and the reports are potentially damaging to program developers and ultimately the success of students. (See http://www.nifdi.org/research/reviews-of-di/what-works-clearinghouse for more information on the WWC as revealed through FOIA-released documents.) We have made 2 appeal requests to the Department of Education under the Freedom of Information Act to receive the information that was not sent to us initially, to no avail. According to their rules, the DOE needs to provide us the information requested within 20 days, and if not possible, then a timeline for responding to our appeal must be provided. We have been trying to resolve this for over 16 months. That's why I created a petition to Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR-4) to get the DOE to follow the law and send us the information per our FOIA request. DeFazio's office has been only semi-responsive on this issue and needs to know that our request is critical for kids, decision-makers and the field of education in general. Once we have at least 50 signatures from DeFazio constituents the petition will be forwarded. Please send this on to anyone who lives in the 4th district and ask that they join us.

Many kids struggle because the content that schools teach is either too hard or too easy. Students should be able to move at their own pace in school.

This petition has been started because the current incumbent Valeria Silva has constantly demonstrated her inability to drive improvements in local St Paul schools. Her inability to make changes to benefit the teachers and students include, but are not limited to, rapid increase in violence towards students and teachers; the lack of support for teachers; the removal of disciplinary actions for violent students, and the lack of transparency between her and protagonists such as Rashad Turner. The teachers and students of public schools in St. Paul, Minnesota require a new leader, someone that will uphold the need for discipline within schools. St. Paul needs a leader that can directly empower teachers to do what they are best at and to foster a safe environment within our schools. The position that Silva currently occupies requires someone that can stand up to those who want to disrupt schools by illegal protests, and fosters respect for the teaching institution.

For almost 20 years, Parents for Public Schools has been lobbying our elected officials to make fair school funding a priority. With an ever decreasing tax base and an increase in the number of children living in poverty in Syracuse, the impact of funding inequity has reached crisis proportions. The Syracuse City School District is dependent on the state for the majority of the school funding and the residents do not vote for a school budget. It’s time to take the politics out of funding education and make sure all schools receive the resources their students need.

Along with the Social Emotional Learning Alliance for Massachusetts, I have been working to educate and advocate for SEL because when we argue about test scores, charter vs. public and longer school days, we are losing sight of the gravity of education and the impact it could have on violence and addictions. Let's send a message to focus on WHAT we teach and WHO is teaching, not WHERE we teach it. Teach about emotion and thought and its impact on our decision-making.