everyone my name is andy a cast and i'm a community organizer with the league of education voters here on m m r t i t v the league of education voters is an education advocacy and policy organization and we work on state wide advocacy for the last year we've been working on disproportionality in school discipline here in washington state well there's what is disproportionality this proportionality is the ratio of students of color low income and special needs students who are suspended or expelled from school and comparison to their white peers and we know that more students of color are suspended and expelled at a higher rate than white students so some of the things we've been working on statewide currently there's a bill in the senate senate bill fifty two forty four and house bill sixteen eighty and what we really asked for is to have to get the facts we want accurate data we want schools and districts to collect data on how many students are suspended what their race or ethnicity is how long they were suspended or expelled if they receive educational services and all the information so that we know when there's a problem and how we can identify it and also this way we can track the data and know when schools are improving we also are advocating for better policies we know that kids can learn if they're not in class so we want better policies that teach kids conflict resolution that use parent engagement and mediation tactics and policies that provide support and not punishment for kids and  ask the state of washington to end indefinite expulsions so currently right now if a student is expelled there is no policy in place that will bring that student back to any district it's just the goodwill of a district so we're asking the state to implement no more than one calendar year were students would be expelled or suspended out of school this way we have a clear path back for students who've been expelled or suspended out of school and there's a lot that we can do at the local level we're asking parents youth and community advocates to go to their school board to me individually with your school board and to turn school board meetings because you can advocate you can ask for your school to change their discipline policies and this is actually a cultural shift we say that our schools need to have a climate change and a cultural change so that we provide policies and support for students and not punishments for students and again i hope you join us my name is andy a with the league of education voters and we're a statewide education advocacy and policy organization here presenting today on m m r t i t and lastly i want to tell you how you can be involved for the league of education where voters we also do workshops we do trainings and we do a lot of community events to get  involved and at m r t i t v we're going to be coming here to do workshops with the used we know that yes advocacy is a strong and powerful tool and one of the most powerful tools to seize your personal story in a way to advocate so if you're interested in coming to learn more and learn how you can advocate issues around school discipline transforming your school climate or other education advocacy issues please contact m r t i t v and stay tuned for one of want immigration so different topic site being under age drinking so a lot of discussion going on so it's going well thank you and this community what are the problems it's a lot of disease depression and so we're focusing on all aspect off but pretty much all the health issue is really affecting on the community on this even do you think this even can make a difference already told you how do you think you can help us in terms of doing some other things in this program i'm not sure i'm not familiar words you're but i would advice if you have no media nowadays the most powerful tool we can to use so i think you could focus you can help us by focusing on the whole issue whether it's under a strange thing was there is depression what is hiv i seen you could discuss that and have a workshop or bring some profession who  was professionals was on the committee so they could you know you could share that kind of program and focus on that aspect of it because you know as you know already media is especially among young kids media is the powerful tools they have right now so all right thank you for giving us your time in forty into real news this no problem thank you