Westbury schools are not receiving its fair share of funding. New York State owes Westbury schools $39,000,000, but yet, funds this high-needs district with significantly less. Challenges faced in our district include rising enrollment, space constraints, additional resources for diverse learners and increased poverty. Funding is needed to maintain resources to meet increased needs while closing the achievement gap.

The farm worker movement is determined to address Jim Crow era discrimination against farm workers like the UFW’s huge 2016 victory in California that ensures the implementation of more inclusive regulations for farm workers starting in 2019. In California, overtime law for farm workers ensures farm workers will have an equal right to overtime pay and continues the process of reducing discrimination in employment laws against agricultural workers. The change started in California it is time to set this standard for the entire nation. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was signed excluding farm workers from its overtime protections and this can no longer be justified or tolerated. It was wrong in 1938 and it is wrong now. A new proposal should be introduced in Congress shortly that would right this wrong and should be passed immediately. The UFW’s proposal would remedy the discriminatory denial of overtime pay and the minimum wage to all farm workers under current law. Farm workers deserve basic minimum wage and overtime protections like any other US worker. Workers in agriculture would be entitled to time-and-a-half pay for working more than 40 hours in a week. It would phase in overtime pay over a period of 4 years beginning in 2019; for employers with 25 or fewer employees, the phase-in will be delayed by three additional years. Itthat will be introduced in congress in the near future mirrors California’s phase-in requirement to ensure equity. This legislation eliminates most of the exemptions to the minimum wage for agricultural employers; although the family farm exemption would continue. We all want to feel good about the food we purchase and consume, and the continuing discrimination in employment laws against farm workers – the people who produce our food – contribute to a stain on our food system that must be stopped. Will you support farm workers? By signing the pledge you are committing to hold your representatives accountable to address this unjust exclusion of agricultural workers from the minimum wage and overtime pay.

To prevent a disastrous war in the Middle East!

“I just want to know where my daughter is and that she is safe. She’s two years old, and it’s been two months since we were separated—I don’t know why we were separated. I don’t understand. We came here to seek help, we were afraid for our lives.” -Father, seeking asylum and being held in an adult immigration detention center at the U.S. southern border in August 2017. Described as “very depressed” due to the separation by his housing mates to WRC. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under Secretary Nielsen’s leadership has been tearing children apart from their parents to scare others from coming to our borders. There’s no justification for this practice. These families and children aren’t threats to our safety. They’re often fleeing unspeakable violence and persecution in their home countries. Many are from Central America, home to some of the most dangerous countries in the world. The administration has claimed that they must separate children from their parents to protect them. But policies exist for protecting children—and separating them from their parents is not the way. There’s no security crisis either. Border apprehensions are at decades-low levels, according to the government’s own data. It’s cruel to punish parents who are doing everything they can to protect their children and to punish children by depriving them of their parents. Separating a child from a mother or father only leads to more trauma for all. Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. DHS shouldn’t play politics with families to try to discourage people from seeking protection, and there’s no legal basis for doing so either. Family unity is one of our core values and is reflected in our laws. Our government has a responsibility under U.S. immigration law to hear a person’s immigration or asylum case, not to try to scare them away from asking for help. Doing so puts these families at extremely high risk of experiencing further rights violations. Separating families is also expensive. By some estimates, the government practice of detaining mothers and children apart from each other would cost taxpayers an average of $327 million per year. And keeping families locked up together is also expensive and cruel, when there are cost efficient and effective alternatives to detention. That money won’t make our country safer; it would only waste taxpayer dollars. Separating families or keeping them locked up in detention is NOT a solution. It won’t make us safer or stop people from seeking protection when they have no other option. It’s not who we are. Sign this petition to tell Secretary Nielsen to stop separating families at the border once and for all. Children belong with their parents in safe communities, not locked up in detention centers. We are better than this. This petition is sponsored by Al Otro Lado, Alianza Americas, Amnesty International USA, Kids in Need of Defense, Latin America Working Group, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, MomsRising, National Immigrant Justice Center, Women’s Refugee Commission

I am starting this petition to prevent a completely insane and potentially catastrophic Nuclear war.

Please pass legislation that the National Security Advisor has to get Senate Confirmation!

Had time to waste during a school break.

As Connecticut residents, we have seen the aftermath of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 20 children and 6 educators were killed in 2012. Families and communities can no longer be torn apart due to careless acts of violence carried out with weapons that are not regulated properly. We demand legislation be passed that the vast majority of Americans want, not just legislation that aligns with special interest groups. Currently, it is perfectly legal to go online and buy most of an unassembled gun, without a serial number and without any registration requirements. Only a modicum of skill is needed to put it all together. Firearms made from these DIY kits are known as ghost guns because they contain no serial numbers, are untraceable and require no background check to purchase. But these firearms are no playthings. Homemade assault weapons have been used in mass shootings and attacks on law enforcement around the country. Even in Connecticut, which passed some of the nation’s toughest gun laws in the wake of Sandy Hook, anyone could get a ready-to-assemble gun by mail within a matter of days. The passage of House Bill No. 5540 would regulate these guns and help reduce that number of unregistered, untraceable firearms, which are attractive to people prohibited from possessing firearms and for selling on the black market, destined to be crime guns. Not only does the gun itself and how it is acquired need to be more closely regulated, it also should not be possible to modify a semi-automatic weapon to where it fires at an alarmingly close rate to an automatic weapon. A bump stock is one of these modifications, which harnesses the weapon’s recoil and causes the weapon’s trigger to be engaged many times faster than the average human could otherwise fire. Bump stocks allow assault weapons to operate as machine guns. The Las Vegas shooter used bump stocks to fire more than 1,100 rounds in just 10 minutes, killing 58 and injuring more than 500 concertgoers on October 1, 2017, in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Machine guns are tightly regulated under the 1934 National Firearms Act that has effectively prevented their use in criminal activity and mass shootings, so why it is possible to modify a gun to almost the exact capabilities? The passage of House Bill No. 5542, would ban bump stocks, binary trigger systems and trigger cranks, all of which increase a gun’s rate of fire. With that being said, we call upon Governor Malloy, the State House, and the State Senate to pass the legislation, H.B. No. 5542 and H.B. No. 5540, banning the sales of bump stocks and regulating ghost guns. It is imperative that we pass these measures to protect our citizens. Not only do most people support them, but experts believe that they are important steps to take in the fight against gun violence. Now it is time for the Connecticut leadership to affirm, as the public already has, that the life of a child or innocent civilian is more important than someone’s semi-automatic rifle.

In previous legislation, the State of Illinois has outlined the specific language and parameters for home-based bakers. The Cottage Law stipulates all baked goods allowed and deemed safe and all baked goods not allowed such as creamed pies as one an example. The home baked items have already cleared all food safety hurdles determined by health and food safety professionals. These pre-qualified home baked items are allowed to be sold at Farmers Markets statewide, including in Whiteside County. Home bakers provide high quality and innovative products which should make our rural communities proud and more inviting. The Cupcake Law provides a cap of $1,000 of, direct, home sales per month for the home baker. This cap prevents undue competition to the professional bakery. The products our home bakers make available are in many ways superior to that which is available to the residents of rural Whiteside Co Communities. Home bakers are able to use higher quality product while taking more time to prepare and provide for specific dietary needs on demand. Home bakers are committed to the quality of their products, ingredients and committed to food safety and sanitation. Many IL businesses start small and out of a home. Squelching entrepreneurship is counterproductive to the heart of small business. HB5354 must be adopted by Whiteside County to keep this spirit alive in IL.

Put a stop to the mistreatment of immigrants just because of their legal status here in the U.S. With this petition I want everyone who isn't aware of the fact to know that we are all equal and deserve the same chances and in this case a chance at the "American Dream".

Our country's multi-billion dollar food industry is allowing that our produce is used by destructive oil companies like Chevron as a disposal site for their oil wastewater. Water samples have determined that the wastewater contains toxic chemicals, some that are linked to cancer and reproductive harm. Known for nationally sold brands like POM Wonderful, Wonderful Pistachios, and Halos mandarins, Wonderful has the political influence to stop this!

The Bangerter family farm in Farmington, which provides fresh and local produce throughout northern Utah, is in jeopardy of being lost, in order for Farmington City to relocate soccer fields that are being paved over to put in a new highway. There are many other locations where soccer fields can be put, other than a producing farm. Farmington City should look elsewhere. Farmington City should also support the Bangerter family's petition to protect the farm under the Utah Agriculture Protection Act.