letters from page 11
their lives. Vote for a living minimum wage. Ensure that women make equal pay and have equal opportunity. Ensure that women have paid maternal leave. Bring down the American maternal mortality rate. Raise women – all women – out of poverty. Create change in society by changing many of the conditions that lead many women to choose to get an abortion. Create a society where women are empowered and safe. Do these things rather than taking away a woman’s right to autonomy, equality, and privacy. If you do not support these things and call yourself “pro-life,” “pro-life” is a farce. It is a farce that aims to “put women in their place” and that does not value life. The “pro-life” campaign is nothing but anti-liberty, anti-civil rights, anti-equality, anti-separation of church and state, and against the rights to privacy, autonomy, and freedom of religion. If you are truly “pro-life,” throw your energy into creating a more egalitarian society in which life is actually valued rather than attacking women’s rights. Mary Hodges Charlo
Fix the problem Editor, Imagine that you suddenly learn of an asphalt plant being planned next to your house. You think of the noise, the dust, the smell, the traffic. You think you 12 - July 6, 2022
have a public agency that will help regulate that operation—mitigate the hours of operation, control traffic safety, protect your air, land, and water. You would be wrong. I learned this when an opencut gravel operation was proposed for my neighborhood here in Arlee. Despite our attempts to learn more about this operation, to ensure that the company applying for the permit complies with what little rules are in place, the DEQ has been silent. Our legislature last year ignored public concerns and passed HB 599, eliminating the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s ability to work for us, Montana citizens. All Montanans near proposed opencut gravel operations will suffer from the consequences of changes in the law, regardless of where they live. Our quiet, rural neighborhood, and the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas next door, will be changed forever by the asphalt plant and gravel pit operation. Think there will be reclamation when it’s all over? Most opencut mines never comply with laws we have. And the Montana DEQ is silent. We here in Arlee have little recourse in the matter, and neither will you, should this unfortunate situation occur next to your house. Write to the DEQ Opencut Mine division and tell them of your concerns: deqopencut@mt.gov. We need to tell our legislators to fix the problems caused by HB 599. For all of us. Jennifer Knoetgen Arlee
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Afterschool conference highlights need By Taylor Davison / Valley Journal
POLSON — Educators from around the state gathered in Polson on June 27 and 28 to learn ways to bolster and support their afterschool programs at the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) Summer Training conference. 21st CCLC is a program that provides federally funded five-year grants for afterschool programs through OPI in Montana. Each state receives funding scaled to the number of students served in the population, giving Montana a total of $6 million to be spread throughout the entire state. Of these funds, 93% goes out to grantees, and 7% stays at the state for staff to run the program. According to their research, a total of 6,420 students in Montana attended 21st CCLC programs during the 20202021 school year and summer. Operating with the foundational principles of responsibility, integrity, knowledge, freedom, passion, opportunity, sound judgement, and a winwin focus, 21st CCLC afterschool programs have proved vital in a wide variety of ways according to conference attendees. “What happens (in afterschool) is what I call ‘disguised learning,’” said south central Regional Director Mark Branger of the Huntley Project. “They’re doing activities to teach things like math … It’s fewer worksheets and basically more hands on. It’s an extension, a supplement.” This project-based learning can appeal to students in ways the typical school day curValley Journal
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riculum can’t. If a student is uninspired by core curriculum they aren’t going to do well, explained attendee and actress Meredith Scott Lynn of Legally Blonde fame, now CEO and President of Write Brain World. “They have to supplement the school day to something that connects the kids to their subjects in engaging ways,” she said. Some program directors reported improved school day attendance for chronically absent students who began attending afterschool programs. “They went to school because they were so excited to go to the afterschool program,” commented western Regional Director and 21st CCLC Grant Director Rae Herman of Hot Springs Schools. Part of the draw for students, attendees speculated, was that afterschool programs are structured differently than the school day and tend to allow
more decision making by the students. “Voice and choice,” Herman called it. 21st CCLC programs provide a wide variety of programs, from robotics and Lego leagues to media arts and children’s book writing programs. Scott Lynn’s ‘Write Brain World,’ for example, sells project and social emotional based programs to schools, including a children’s book program. “I always say I went from Legally Blonde to literacy,” Scott Lynn commented. Through her program, children are asked to work collaboratively and independently to create a narrative from an existing set of illustrations. When their story is done, to encourage a passion for writing and bolster their confidence, each student author receives a professionally printed and bound book with their picture and author biography inside.
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