[Peace-presence] Volunteer your lunch hour to distribute Opt Out forms to students

[Bob Tregilus]

Hello local peace and antiwar activists,

Next Monday, which happens to be September 11th, the Youth 
Militarization Awareness Project (Y-MAP mission statement below) will 
begin our Opt Out Campaign to distribute Opt-Out forms to students at 
all the high schools in the Washoe County School District (WCSD). For 
those of you who may not know what "Opt Out" means, it refers to forms 
students or parents must submit to their high school principals office 
if they do not want the schools to release their contact information to 
the military recruiters. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires 
contact information to be given to the military by school administrators 
unless the students or parents exercise their right to Opt Out. Despite 
our work on this issue last year at the District and State level to 
improve the notification process to make sure that all students and 
parents in the District know about their rights to privacy, the WCSD 
chose to ignore our request that the Opt Out forms be mailed with other 
registration materials and newsletters. In addition, in case you didn't 
see Laura Fillmore's letter to the editor in the Reno News and Review, 
the district still uses a form that doesn't allow students themselves to 
Opt Out even though the NCLB Act states they have this right. Y-MAP will 
continue working to improve the situation to impact the notification 
process and forms in the next school year 2007/ 2008; but we still need 
to get the word out to all district high school students about Opt Out 
and the deadline is October 1st to do so!

Please help us distribute forms. We are starting with the high schools 
which had absolutely no Opt Out forms turned in last year. Please come 
to the first "Opt Out" distribution near Hug High School on September 11 
at 11:15 am. We'll meet in front of Sonic Burger on McCarran near the 
intersection of McCarran and Clearacre before lunch starts to talk about 
ways to approach the students with the forms. We will notify the press 
that we will be distributing the forms and hopefully garner some support 
without having to hold a press conference. Laura will have some talking 
points to go over in case the media wants to know our purpose. After the 
Opt Out form distribution, we'll go back to Sonic and talk about 
breaking into teams and creating a schedule for covering all the public 
high schools for at least one lunch hour.

Your help would be greatly appreciated and would truly make a 
difference. We'll ask students we talk to to tell their friends about 
Opting Out. Last year, Laura, Ireri and I distributed forms at Reno High 
School during a lunch hour. The students we talked to really appreciated 
knowing about their rights. Last year, Opt Out totals reflected only a 
small portion of WCSD students: 301 students out of approximately 
16,654. We know we can do better than that this year. The school we 
distributed Opt Out forms, Reno High had the biggest Opt Out totals: 111 
students spared from having to deal with military recruiters and their 
quotas while pursuing their high school diplomas.

We want to see the Opt Out totals multiply significantly this year, and 
we are asking for your help. We've vigiled, marched, protested, stood on 
corners, prayed, peace summited, sung, and have stood as models for the 
federal government to snap our pictures , but we never have distributed 
Opt Out forms to those most impacted. Let's bring the troops home by 
preventing those who don't want to go from going in the first place. 
Hope you'll join us in front of Sonic Burger on McCarran at the 
southwest corner of the Clearacre intersection. Circle the date Monday 
September 11th at 11:15am. It should only take an hour and and half at 
the most.

Thanks!

Lee Dazey on behalf of all of Y-MAP members.

P.S. Feel free to give Betsy a call if you have additional questions. 
849-0842 or 475-2609; bgledhill at pyramid.net

Youth Militarization Awareness Project: Advocating for a Peaceful Future 
Y-MAP is dedicated to safeguarding student privacy rights, addressing 
the militarization of our youth in public schools, advocating equal 
access for all career alternatives, and creating a map towards a 
peaceful future.