Rep. Vance offers striking kids an alternative to walkout

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Rep. Sarah Vance

WILL THE STUDENTS ATTEND LISTENING SESSION?

Rep. Sarah Vance, upon learning that Homer students will take part in the global strike over climate change, published an offer for an alternative activity for them.

Vance is hosting an on-campus listening session to be held at Homer High School during the hour-long strike.

“About 25 percent of Alaska students are chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of days, or more than three weeks over the course of a school year, according to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development,” she said. “I want to encourage students to stay in school. We can have productive conversations about important issues without neglecting education. I intend to utilize this time to listen to students’ concerns and emphasize that meaningful conversation precedes meaningful change.”

Vance will make herself available at the high school during the student strike for any students who want to talk to a lawmaker about their concerns.

19 COMMENTS

  1. “Global strike over climate change.” Proof that kids these days need to believe in something, even if it’s not making a difference to a perceived problem.. Facts or actions that facilitate change could be something to believe in. But I guess that just isn’t an option for Homer kids. I hope Vance can share and listen and expose some kids to some facts, not feelings.

  2. No wonder the Radical Left despise Populists and Conservatives as weak, unworthy of respect.
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    Listening sessions, Sarah? You’re kidding of course.
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    Listening sessions every time your child soldiers want to skip school in the name of some political tantrum they’re too ignorant to understand or articulate?
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    No, Sarah. Enough coddling already! Expel the little “strikers” for a week and fine their parent(s), if any, a thousand dollars for each “striker”.
    .
    If and when the little darlings return to school, assuming of course the Kenai Peninsula’s parody of an education industry, haven’t walked off their jobs, each “striker” submits a five-hundred word handwritten essay from each “striker” about why staying in school is better than submerging themselves in a social collective disguised as a “global strike over climate change”.
    .
    Then, Sarah, do your “listening session”, read their essays, see firsthand what your education industry produces, then ask yourself who in his right mind should tolerate this kind of (expl del), much less pay for it!
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    Get back to us, will you?

    • While in certain situations a Hardline approach is necessary, making kids write essays about staying in school won’t actually teach them anything. If anything it will cause then to become more rebellious and rooted in that same belief. I know because I was a kid that had to write stupid essays because my Catholic school thought it would teach me.
      What would work instead is asking what the kids dream careers are, then painting them a picture of the miserable worthless lives they will lead where that have mental issues and always second guessing why they didn’t take their education seriously. Show them the horror of living in a trailer struggling to pay bills with 3 kids while their drunken neighbor is screaming at his girlfriend about meth.
      Want to live that kind of life? No? Then you should probably stay in school.

      I think what Sarah is doing is admirable. Just because they are kids and have not completed their eighteen revolutions around the sun does not mean they are idiots. Sure they lack life experience but good ideas can come from anyone.

  3. This is a publicity stunt and hand holding session. She home schooled all of her kids, so obviously she thinks public school are inept. The jury is still out, but I hope she isn’t a RINO.

  4. “Kids are absent from school”. …I say, GOOD. Compulsory education is a joke and it’s purpose it to create robots.

  5. Excellent idea Sarah Vance!! I hope the majority of kids take part but realistically I believe many will simply use it as an excuse to be away from school.

  6. Without protest and civil disobedience there’d be no America.

    The youth have realized that that the adults are screwing them out of a future, and they are mad about it. With only one decade remaining to radically reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions, there is no more time to foist responsibility on the upcoming generation. Addressing the climate crisis must happen now!

    This strike is 3-days before the UN Climate Action Summit; the goal is to put pressure on our global leaders to take immediate action. While the youth are required to attend school, with worsening climate destruction, this goal of going to school becomes pointless. Why study for a future, they ask, which may not be there? Why devote their young lives to becoming educated, when governments are not listening to the educated?

    Young people around the world urge everyone to strike with them. “If not now, then when and if not you, then who?” They ask.

    “If You Still Say That We Are Wasting Valuable Lesson Time, Then Let Me Remind You That Our Political Leaders Have Wasted Decades Through Denial And Inaction.” – Greta Thunberg

    “We, the youth of America, are striking because decades of inaction has left us with just 11 years to change the trajectory of the worst effects of climate change, according to the Oct 2018 UN IPCC Report.

    We are striking because our world leaders have yet to acknowledge, prioritize, or properly address our climate crisis.

    We are striking because marginalized communities across our nation —especially communities of color, disabled communities, and low- income communities— are already disproportionately impacted by climate change.

    We are striking because if the social order is disrupted by our refusal to attend school, then the system is forced to face the climate crisis and enact change. With our futures at stake, we call for radical legislative action to combat climate change and its countless detrimental effects on the American people.

    We are striking for a fair and just transition to a 100% renewable economy, and for ending the creation of additional fossil fuel infrastructure. Additionally, we believe the climate crisis should be declared a national emergency because we are running out of time.

    The time is now.

    Climate Strikes are occurring throughout Alaska in these communities: Anchorage, Palmer, Fairbanks, Soldotna, Juneau, Seward, Homer and more.

    • What will you do if 12 years pass and we are still here? I have lived through all climate scares since the ‘70’s and scratch my head about how really to help the planet.

  7. Here is a chance for Homer School kids to raise their voices, and act, if they are feeling alarmed about their future. It is a worldwide event. I support this effort by the kids… it is their future that climate crises will really effect.

  8. It’s the adults that are being lazy and disengaged. The adults will die of old age, the kids will die of climate change. Why should our students stay in school when there is no future for them in the face of a climate crisis and our leaders don’t listen to the educated anyway? I commend the brave students that take part in civil disobedience and the climate strike, and choose to join a global movement. Power does not concede willingly, it must be demanded. Our state politicians have sent a clear message this year, that they do not value quality education, they do not listen to the educated anyway, and they are not taking the climate crisis seriously. I’m glad that Sarah is finally willing to take action on climate change, and to place a higher value on education than Dunleavy has, though this seems like a very flawed tactic in that it appears more of an attempt to derail the movement. Sarah has supported our governor, who immediately disassembled the climate change task force once he was appointed. She also insulted Homer High Students on social media in the past, showing incredible disrespect for them. The kids that are engaged in this are not doing it as an excuse to be lazy, they are doing it because it is a global call to action. Ignoring the urgency of the situation and placing blame on kids and their hard working and under-paid educators, accusing them of have ‘feelings’ as if that’s a bad thing, saying that our kids are ‘coddled’ when they are inheriting a burning planet because of the previous generation’s greed and laziness, this is all extremely irresponsible behavior of the adults that actually hold power, political sway, financial investments and voting rights.

  9. Right… because missing school to talk to Sarah Vance privately is better than protesting for climate change publicly??? Either way, kids are missing school. One way, they are acting in solidarity with, literally, the world. The other, their voices will go in one ear and out the other.

  10. I congratulate Sarah Vance. Talking can cross barriers when nothing else can. I very much hope Sarah knows how phony this so-call climate change really is. Bill Gates of Microsoft and others are ejecting Heavy Metals into the atmosphere to poison us because of this Socialist reasoning. Everyone please learn. Seymour Marvin Mills Jr. sui juris

  11. I’m glad these kids walk to school every day and are telling their parents not to use heat and electricity made by fossil fuels. And have stopped using evil plastics made from oil. Good for them. oh wait.

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