Wednesday's Presentations

The first group on Wednesday gave a presentation on on children and their schools. The basis of their project was based on the unfairness and inequality of opportunity in the school system of The The net San Francisco and the Bay Area. A major issue in causing this problem is the differences of wealth in different areas. The areas in which some people are more wealthy tend to be areas were the schools are better. This could be due to donations from parents and the government rewarding schools with funds based on attendance rates. In wealthier areas, parents have more money that they are able to donate to school, making the schools education system better then others.The inability for certain schools to get funding causes the schools to continue to face problems and now get any better. On top of this the state of California recently cut government funding to California schools. Historically, there hasn't been an attempt to change the amounts of funding on the grand scale. Mark Zuckerberg, however, recently donated a grant of 120 million to help fun Bay Area Schools. While this donation is helpful, it will not help this problem long term. The group proposed a possible solution to this issue. By bringing this issue to light, calling for change, and changing the laws they believe that we can create a more fair public school system.
The next group talked about the environment and the effects of trash on the road to our community. Trans can cause unsanitary and messy environments, as well as hurt animals.  The group proposed participating in roadside or other clean ups, cleaning up after oneself, paying people to clean, and donating to organizations to work on cleaning the Bay Area.
The next group gave a presentation on preschools in the Bay Area. The preschools and childcare in the Bay Area are very expensive for parents. On top of this, the Bay Area is already an expensive place to live so most people have to put there money into other things. The group interviewed many preschools not all of the offered financial aid. Those who did offered it on a "case by case basis" and did not have a clear way of addressing the problem. Historically, groups such has Head Start have been worked to give free or discounted childcare. The group proposed either opening up more institutions such as Head Start or making preschool part of the public school system.
The last groups topic was stress in teens. the explored the causes of teen stress and thought that a good solution would be finding ways to help teens at school.