NATIONAL REFUSAL LETTER.
Dear Board of Education, Superintendent, Principals, and Teachers of ________________ school district:
I am writing to inform you that I am using my Federal Parental Rights, as per the “Federal Parental Rights Doctrine”, ruled by the Supreme Court, to enforce the following…
We are writing today to formally inform the __________ school district of our decision to refuse to allow our child _____________ to participate in any local assessments, tied toCollege and Career Ready Performance Index , Teacher Keys Effectiveness System or Leader Keys Effectiveness System, for the 2016-2017 school year. My child will be scored as a “refusal” on all state and local testing.
Our refusal should in no way reflect on the teachers, administration, or school board. This was not an easy decision for us, but we feel that we have no other choice. We simply see these tests as harmful, expensive, unfair, and a waste of time and valuable resources.
This year we will show effort to eliminate unnecessary and harmful assessments in our public schools. Our child will not participate in any assessments other than those solely for the use of the individual classroom teacher.
We refuse to allow any data to be used for purposes other than the individual teacher’s own formative or cumulative assessment. Any assessment whose data is used to determine school ranking, teacher effectiveness, state or federal longitudinal studies or any other purpose other than for the individual classroom teacher’s own use to improve his or her instruction will not be presented to our child.
To be clear, our children will not participate in the following:
• Any so-called “benchmark” exams whether they are teacher-designed or not, since these exams are imposed by entities other than the individual teacher.
• Pre and post assessments connected to “Student Learning Objectives” or any other assessments mandated by the Governor’s office.
• Any milestone testing.
• Any progress-monitoring or RTI assessments.
• Any OAS or adaptive testing done in computer/tablet labs.
• Any exam used to formulate an evaluation or score for our children’s teachers or their school.
• Any survey, electronic or paper, not designed by my child’s teacher to be used in classroom instruction.
• Any fitness or nutrition information that includes my child’s height, weight and/or BMI.
• Any online programs or applications that require any personal information or that maintain student data in any form.
• Any “confidentiality” agreements or coerced silence about testing or test content.
**Furthermore, our child, _____________is not receive any curriculum teaching religion. Islam or any other. My child is to receive alternate assignments.
***In addition, my child is to be taken “off the grid”, so to speak, at school, which includes school computers and my child is to be given assignments, in paper form.
****Lastly, my child, _______________is not to participate in any “National Sexuality Standards” http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/01/18/17sexed.h31.html lessons, which I deem improper. Please note, I am refusing any lesson, which has to do with the “The Reproductive System”.
We believe in and trust our highly qualified and dedicated teachers and administrators. We believe in the high quality of teaching and learning that occurs at _____________ School. We hope our efforts will be understood in the context in which they are intended: to support the quality of instruction promoted by the school, and to advocate for what is best for all children. Our school will not suffer when these tests are finally gone, they will flourish as they have in the years previous. ________ school should have a unified policy in place to address children who are refusing these assessments.
Additionally, we are requesting that the school make accommodations for meaningful alternative activities or assignments that will continue to promote [his or her] academic and intellectual growth. Our child will not be in attendance if academically viable alternatives are not available on days when testing occurs. Furthermore, we must be guaranteed in writing that whatever option is taken, either alternative assignments or absence, our child will not face any negative consequences to, for example, course grades, social or behavioral evaluations, workload, promotion, or future classroom assignments.
We do apologize in advance for the inconvenience this decision may cause the administration, the school, and staff.
Sincerely,
Still, you should be wary. “Super lice” have expanded their reach across the United States. (Yes, “super lice.”)
Last year, 25 states reported infestations of the so-called super lice, the strain of head lice immune to common over-the-counter treatments. This year, super lice have been found in 42 states. They are resistant to many of the chemicals commonly found in readily available lice treatments, and the genetic mutations that cause resistance “are widely and uniformly present in U.S. lice.”
The good news: Head lice themselves aren’t harmful to humans and don’t carry disease.
“Head lice are a nuisance,” Dr. Cindy Devore, a researcher and spokeswoman for the American Association of Pediatrics, told Patch, “not a personal or public health threat.”
More good news: schools are NOT a breeding ground for the spreading of lice.
Lice don’t jump or fly. They crawl. So it would be difficult for them to make it across classrooms and desks to infest a whole classroom or school. Summer camps and sleepovers — where kids may be in regular head-to-head contact with each other — are a different story.
But schools are generally safe.
“If they were highly transmissible in schools, you would expect the entire classroom to be infested by four to six weeks of having one infestation in the classroom, but that is not what we see,” Devore said.
The bad news, Mom and Dad? If your kid has lice, it’s probably your fault.
“Schools do get blamed, because head lice in America, like any parasite, are not something that a parent wants to take ownership for and therefore will be quick to place blame on another,” the doctor said.
Nobody wants little critters crawling around on their or their kid’s heads. It’s annoying, itchy and, frankly, pretty gross. So how can you keep them away? Here are some tips.
1. Avoid head-to-head contact
Your children should avoid direct contact with other kids’ heads and, specifically, their hair: headbutting playing sports, hugging, having sleepovers or staying in close quarters at camp.
If they don’t make direct contact, it’s tougher for the lice to jump on board.
2. Don’t share clothes, especially jackets and hats
This is the other most common way lice spread, according to the CDC.
Make sure your child has their own shirts, hats, hair ribbons/barrettes, sports uniforms and — especially once the weather cools down — jackets and scarves. Bulky clothes are more likely to be in contact with a person’s head or hair, giving lice a free ride to hop on board and find a new host.
And if for some reason they need to share clothes…
3. Wash clothes and sheets regularly
Lice can’t live off of their host for more than a day or so, but to make sure they’re completely dead, wash clothes, sheets and pillowcases regularly in hot water to completely neutralize them and their eggs.
If you know your child shared his or her jacket, give it a good, hard wash to make sure any possible critters won’t survive.
4. Try specialized shampoo and combs
If you know lice has made a home on your child’s head, your first step should be a special lice shampoo and combthat is available at most pharmacies.
The shampoo has special chemicals designed to fight off the pests, and fine combs have been made to weed out the lice and nits, their eggs.
But you may be dealing with some of the “super lice” mentioned in the above study. In that case…
5. See your doctor for stronger medicine
There are still treatments out there that these so-called super lice aren’t yet resistant to, but many of them are only available via prescription.
If you’ve exhausted all the preventative measures above but still find a head infested with lice that just won’t die, go see a doctor who can get you the firepower you need to say goodbye to lice for good.