After-school cuts would be crushing
After-school cuts would be crushing
I was shocked to learn the president is proposing to eliminate federal support for after-school and summer learning programs. That funding is critical to children, families and communities, making it possible for about 1.6 million children in Hawaii and across the country to participate in after-school programs that keep them safe, inspire them to learn, and help their working parents keep their jobs.
If the president succeeds in killing the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative, many of those children will have no safe, supervised place to go after the school day ends. They’ll be latchkey kids, on their own, on the streets, some getting involved in risky behaviors, and all losing the opportunity to be constructively engaged and learning under the watchful eye of caring adults.
Cutting funds for after school would cause real harm to children, families and communities. It’s up to Congress to make sure the president doesn’t succeed in killing federal after-school funding – and up to all of us to make sure our members of Congress know how much we all value after-school programs.
Paula Adams
Hawaii Afterschool Alliance
Song of snowbird hypocrisy
Yesterday as l entered my driveway a car pulled up behind me. A bag of chicken feed fell off my truck, this gentleman had stopped and picked up the feed bag and in the process he lost sight of me but he searched, found me, and returned the bag.
This is in Ocean View, the so-called dumping grounds of Hawaii. I felt so sad? Angry? I don’t know, but we do have 11,000 lots up here, it’s isolated, which for many of us is a good thing.
People here don’t dress to impress, don’t drive fancy cars, and for the most part keep to themselves. We have churches, community center, a park and many other services just like any other community.
That said, I’d like to address the comments from a snowbird in Ocean View who complained about the tax hike for part-time residents. I favor the hike. We have such a shortage of affordable homes, these vacationers should pay more, if nothing else, to discourage this from happening, thus leaving more affordable homes for residents of Hawaii.
But I did get a good laugh from that letter. Here we a have a snowbird who at home gets to impress his friends by speaking of his Hawaiian winter vacation home but when the tax man comes this winter haven becomes a dump. I think I’ll write a song and it shall be a great song.
Paul Santos
Ocean View