In Culver City, parents can set up nonprofit organizations and pool donations to provide a better education for our children. For many years parent's donations have paid for native speaking adjuncts (at El Marino) to provide vital help in language immersion classrooms, as well as other booster club supported positions, such as classroom helpers at Linwood E. Howe. Other schools have similar programs, or would like to start similar programs. 1- The union "Association of Classified Employees" or ACE wants to take over these programs and force booster club financed adjuncts and other part time employees to join the union, and they threaten a lawsuit. 2- Since the same small pool of donations would have to pay for union dues, administrative overhead and higher union wages, our kids may only receive about half of the attention they get now. Parents will lose control of their programs and see their donations pay for very little. Many parents may stop donating altogether, effectively killing the programs. 3- The Culver City school board needs a reason to stand up to the union. By signing this petition you are adding your voice to ask the school board to protect parent-funded volunteer programs and services across the entire Culver City Unified School District. ************************************************************************************** We are about to lose one of the best parts of our children's education: our volunteers, and our parent-supported positions. The Culver City School District (CCUSD) is under threat of a lawsuit by the Association of Classified Employees (ACE). The district told parents that all ACE believes that parent-funded positions can be seen as taking away work from members of their union. Parent leaders at all schools are working together to fight this threat! We need your help and support. Parents were recently informed that the Association of Classified Employees (ACE) President Debbie Hamme has threatened to file a grievance, seeking to force all Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) parent-funded booster clubs to cease and desist the employment of paid classroom volunteers. ORIGIN OF THE CRISIS According to the district, the origin of this "crisis" is the threat of a lawsuit against the district issued by the leader of the Association of Classified Employees, Debbi Hamme. The district has told parents that all booster club (parent-funded) positions and other volunteer work by parents that could be seen as taking away work from members of Ms. Hamme's association may have to stop. The parents would then be responsible to give enough funds to the district so that it could hire union members of ACE for those positions. Moreover, due to union and district requirements, the current paid volunteers are likely to be fired and replaced. Alternatively the current paid workers would be forced to join the union. Because the current wages of the booster club funded positions are raised 100 percent by the parents - at zero cost to the district - the union further wants the booster clubs to continue to fund raise and send the money directly to the district to pay union employees. Because the unions require that all employees be paid the union scale, the booster clubs would have to raise significantly more money to pay the higher wages. The booster clubs would be expected to continue paying for the programs, but lose all rights of hiring, control, supervision or decision-making. We do not have confidence that Culver City parents will donate directly to the district, and simply trust the district to use the money wisely, that parents will pay any additional overhead and that the district will somehow find the resources to administer and supervise the programs. The consensus is that parents will not continue to fund under those circumstances. WHAT WE WANT We believe that parent-funded programs work. In this current economic climate, when more and more funds are being diverted from education, parents have stepped up to fill the gap. Culver City nonprofit booster clubs have come up with creative ways to provide necessary workers to the classrooms that our school district does not supply on its own. No booster club supported jobs have taken employment away from any union member. • We ask CCUSD to protect the volunteers and parent-supported services across CCUSD to the maximum extent allowed by law. • We want the school district to treat the parents equitably. • We insist that our school district give ALL parents at ALL schools the right to fund-raise for positions that are not supplied by the school district, but which have been identified as necessary in our children’s education. • We want CCUSD to give parents at all schools the right to fund raise for positions and then manage those positions by their nonprofit in coordination with the site principal (as is the right of any independent contractor). CASE EXAMPLES: LINWOOD E. HOWE had created and fund-raised for four in-class instructional assistants for the 2010-11 year and had fund raised enough for six this year. Under threat of legal action from ACE, the Linwood E Howe Boosters agreed to a compromise, which reduced the scale of the program significantly. Instead of six instructional assistants, the parents had to scale back and have gone most of the year with three part-time positions. Based on that experience, the head of the booster club at Lin Howe is not confident the program will be able to continue without a clear policy from the school board. EL MARINO The leaders of the 23 year years strong Advocates for Language Learning El Marino (ALLEM) at El Marino were also told that they could no longer run the adjunct program. Adjuncts are native language support providers, who help the teachers and students in the classroom, in either Japanese or Spanish. They would have to turn over all the money they privately fund-raised to the district and the district would hire the union members. According to t...

Voter ID. Requiring a supermajority for tax increases. Attacks on workers' rights. Marriage. Gun Law. Voter ID:I heard the minority (democratic) leader in the house say that if people do not have a picture ID they could take their picture and put it in a data base to verify that they are who they say they are and then allow them to vote. I think this is a way to avoid a new law about voter ID. Requiring a supermajority for tax increases: I think if we need a tax increase on those who can afford it we should do that but only on those that can really, truly afford it. Marriage: If people want to marry and are from an alternative life style they should be granted that right. Gun: I am very concerned about the Gun law. I believe there is no need for this new law and it will cause more harm than good. I have heard that the Police organizations in our state do not want this and I would trust them more than the man who wrote the bill. A young person was recently shot in an elementary school by another young person who had a gun. This, too, is my concern about all of these guns that will be in peoples homes and as always, some adults will not take the proper precautions to keep them locked up. And if they are locked up, how would they be able to, as their fear is so great, shoot an intruder. These guns will be available to the youth in our state and also available to be sold for cash to those who would do so to obtain money. Atttacks on worker's right: I am also concerned for Worker's rights. Workers are very important to a business and should not be hurt.

1/ Constituional Carry: Purcell is asleep at the wheel on this or she has her own agenda which is not the same agenda of the majority of Georgia citizens. Whoever gets the credit for this one could run for governor of Georgia and win by a landslide. Those who oppose it couldnt get elected to dog catcher! 2/ Stop the theiving Clerks of Court from making an additional $100,000.00 per year by stealing the citizens' money from the passports. There are less than a half dozen who think that using our employees to do all the work, having us pay them, and then the Clerks pocket all the money IS CRIMINAL. FIX THIS LOOPHOLE!!!

NJ desperately needs a second tunnel into NYC. The one tunnel we have gets backed up when a train breaks down, and backs up all the trains behind it for hours. This gets people who live in NJ hours late for work in NYC. Or hours late in getting home. Sometimes it is shut down for an entire day. Also, if we had a second tunnel, more trains can run between NJ and NYC which would decrease the significant overcrowding on the peak trains people take to get to work. Sometimes the trains get so overcrowded, people cannot even get on the train. We're calling on President Obama, the Senators, and the House of Representatives to use federal funds to make this infrastructure project of building a second tunnel between NJ and NYC happen! We also call upon Governor Christie, the NJ House, and the NJ Senate to help fund this extremely needed project of a second tunnel into NYC. As a bonus, jobs would get created and put a lot of people to work.

This law would expand Florida's current civil rights laws in employment and public accomodations and benefits to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Furthermore the law would incorporate harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity as a form of harassment on par with sexual and racial harassment.

too many nonviolent drug users are sitting in prison and their lives ruined because they suffer an addiction. end it now.

We need to give support and funding to our schools in Arizona. Every year the schools are scrambling around trying to figure out where they can cut costs, what teachers and support personnel they can lay off, and what schools to close. We have to put money where our mouths are. The children are our future and need to be our first priority.

Oregon will soon be making some enormous changes to our educational system. These changes are coming at us fast. But guess what? Most of the people responsible for these changes are not educators--they are politicians, CEOs, and administrators. We need professional educators at the helm of this ship, not people outside the profession. Please help us to make this happen. Scott Dionne

It's critical to the state of Wisconsin to re-unite the state as a whole

Senate Bill 3 would provide money for school meals to hungry children. The School Meals Bill has been stalled in the House Finance Committee for four years. "The Seward Phonenix Log columnist named Elstun Lauesen discovered the source of this moral irrationality, i.e. $8.2 billion in tax breaks for oil companies. It is called House Bill 110 and it is currently being fought by Senate Bill Wielechowski. Wielechowski is the sponsor for the School Meals Bill. Since he will not allow oil companies to receive billions in tax breaks without accountability, the House Finance Committee is “resolved” not to schedule any Bills, especially those sponsored by Wielechowski." http://kokayi137.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-juneau-hunger-strike/ Please ask Alaska legislators to get this bill to a vote.

Oregon will soon be making some enormous changes to our educational system. These changes are coming at us fast. But guess what? Most of the people responsible for these changes are NOT educator--they are politicians, CEOs, and administrators. We need change agents who are professional educators to oversee these changes. Help us to make this happen.

The Utah Legislature is attempting to force moral views into the school system to the detriment of children and public health by passing a law that would ban the talk of contraceptives in health and sex education classes, or allow schools to skip sex education all together. Current state law requires teaching abstinence-only programs and educators are not allowed to advocate the use of contraception. Gov. Herbert must be told that we owe our children more than an unrealistic ideal: we owe them an education, and the knowledge that will help them protect themselves.