Speakout 9/2

Friday, September 2, 2005

I'm sorry this is so long, and I hope you will print this soon. I just wanted to let the parents know to start expecting the recruiting offices to be contacting you or your children. (It may even be at the schools where they are contacted). My 5th grader brought home something for me to sign, which has to do with the schools funding of grants. I found this on a Website and it's also printed on the paper we are to sign. Here it is: "Congress included a provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that requires local educational agencies (LEAs) receiving assistance under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to provide students' names, addresses and telephone listings to military recruiters upon request. Typically, recruiters request this information on junior and senior high school students. The information is used specifically for armed services recruiting purposes and for informing young people of scholarship opportunities. Schools are required to provide notice to parents, allowing parents an opportunity to opt out of providing the information to recruiters." Now, I'm sorry, but isn't that invasion of our children's privacy? Not to mention ours! I know where the recruiter's office is, and I think that if I wanted my child's name to be given to them, I can do that myself! I don't need the schools giving this sort of information away to them. It's none of their business! If the school board has agreed to do this, then may I suggest, that they put their children's names on the top of the list. I would feel better if I saw some of the board members' names on this list, least their children's names! If my child is good enough to have this information about him given to a recruiter, then so are theirs! Just because they sit on a board, doesn't make them any damn better then the rest of us, nor their kids! Surely this has got to be against the law? I know they are allowed to set up "stations" at the high school job fairs, but to make parents give up their children's information on a 5th grader? Sorry, but they're not getting my son's! I bet they are fixing to start the draft up. Why else would they need this information? I think its a bogus way to cover up here what their real intent is. Or maybe the school board needs to start finding another source of grants and funding then going through the federal system! Do your job, board members, and find another source! Or give them your son/

daughters names! After all, you are the ones who agreed to this, not us parents. I don't remember hearing about an open board meeting where the public was invited to vote on this decision and I don't appreciate you taking it upon yourselves to decide what is best for my children! Since you are NOT their parent, I would place my bet on saying you have no clue as to what is best for MY child! For every parent out there, I'd advise you to read your children's papers before you sign them!

I hope this will run in the paper before Sept. 3rd! Sept. 3rd is being recognized across the country as the National Don't Buy Gas Day! We hope that if everyone will NOT buy gas on Sept. 3rd, it'll cause such a halt to the prices rising so high. We are the people , we are the ones who hurt every time we pay for gas. We are the ones who fill the pinch in our pocketbooks. It has been proven that if everyone stopped buying gas for one day, just one day across America, alone, that it would cause the countries that supply gas to us, to lower their costs. Once these other countries see that we are indeed in control of our monies, then they will not allow prices to be so ridiculous. Everyone please, notify everyone you know NOT to buy gas on Sept. 3rd! Other countries who are feeling the pinch as well, has agreed to do the same. Let's show them how we stick together for the good of the economy.

Could the parents or could the police please do something about the children waiting for the bus in the morning on Smith Street? The children are standing in the middle of the road like they own it and they want someone to hit them. It is like them tormenting and tempting people to run over them. If the parents would please keep an eye on the children or an accident is going to happen. The police might need to monitor this street to keep the kids off the road while during the busy morning traffic.