If WiFi (for example, from a wireless router to a wireless laptop) is unhealthy to have in our homes, especially if your exposure to such wireless EMF/RF emissions is 24/7, then you can bet that leading health and environmental experts are advocating against such chronic exposure at our schools, too.
As we’ve heard and read, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has declared such wireless radiation as a Class 2B possible carcinogen (which means that it may potentially cause cancer in humans), on par with DDT and lead. Would you approve of exposing your children every day and every minute to such environmental toxins at their school?
Well, Los Angeles Unified School District Board members will consider at their meeting next Tuesday a proposal for school wide Wi-Fi systems and wireless laptops. So it’s urgent that LAUSD be informed about why they should instead support wired networks and computers for our children and school employees. It’s healthier, faster, and more secure and reliable. Also, wireless networks and computers are not required to meet the new Common Core state standards.
The LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee originally nixed the wireless technology proposal. But two weeks ago the Committee approved supporting the plan by LAUSD Supt. John Deasy so it can now be considered by the LAUSD Board Members.
LAUSD is the largest school district in California — and the second largest school district in the nation.
Yes, LAUSD Board Members took a very strong stand against cell towers at or next to their schools in June 2000, and May 2009, and then again in December 2009. So what will they do this time?
Please send, today or this weekend, your Letter of Request and Concern to LAUSD Board Members to again do the right thing — ask them to deny Item 12 on the Agenda before their upcoming meeting. Deadline (read more about that below) is Monday Feb. 11 noon (PST) in order for Ms. Shane Gregory, administrator of the Smart Meter Health Alert website, to make enough photocopies of your letter to present at the Board Meeting and ensure that your letter gets submitted as part of the public record of that meeting.
Thanks to Ms. Gregory for providing the following details on how you can join the letter writing campaign to create healthier lives and school environments for our children and their teachers and staff working there:
The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education will be taking action on Item 12 of their Agenda — Phase I of a three-phase program that will, if all three Phases are complete, install WiFi and tablets or laptops in most L.A. Unified District school rooms. The distribution will very probably be at a 1:1 ratio — meaning every single student will have a device and virtually EVERY CLASSROOM WILL BE SATURATED WITH WIFI.
This means that 700,000 teachers and over 45,000 teachers and will be subjected to constant WiFi in school rooms for 6 hours a day.
If we can bring a stop to this, this will set a very important precedent such as those in school systems in Europe and parts of Canada. If this gets voted down, we can proudly say that the second largest school system in the United States has made the health of children a priority, while meeting educational goals by using WIRED technology.
Two weeks ago, the LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee approved the expenditure of $50 million for Phase I in a 9-6 vote.
So now, on Tuesday, it goes before the LAUSD Board for consideration — so the Board has not taken action yet. IT’S NOT TOO LATE! By the time Phase III is completed, the program could cost as much as $900 million.
It is CRITICAL that we stop this BEFORE it happens or, if we can’t stop it, it is CRITICAL that we go on record with what we know.
IMPORTANT: It is important that we make the case that we are NOT against technology in education and that we support all the educational goals of bringing L.A. students quality education and access — but with WIRED methods. WE MUST ADVISE THE BOARD THAT FIBER OPTICS OR OTHER WIRED METHODS CAN DELIVER THE EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS WHILE MITIGATING AGAINST HEALTH EFFECTS.
The chairman of the Bond Oversight Committee created an artificial divide between those of us who know that wireless technology has not been proven to be safe, and those who want to further our kids’ education. Nothing could be further from the truth. We want to further our child’s education, including with wired technology that is healthy, state-of-the-art, superfast and efficient. We cannot let this become a polarized issue.
PLEASE take time from your very busy schedules to participate in a very meaningful way.
Here’s what you can do right now — today or this weekend — just these three things!
1. Write emails on Agenda Item 12 to the seven LAUSD School Board Members Marguerite LaMotte, Monica Garcia, Tamar Galatzan, Steve Zimmer, Bennett Kayser, Nury Martinez, and Richard Vladovic, and their Staff BEFORE noon on Monday 2/11/2013, so they will have enough time to review it before their meeting. Their contact info:
2. IMPORTANT: PLEASE E-MAIL ME A COPY OF YOUR LETTER SENT TO LAUSD — so that your names can be read that day and be part of the record for that meeting. They need to be sent to me, because I must also make 20 photocopies of each of your letters to be distributed to the appropriate people the day of the meeting, and to be entered into the public record at the meeting. My e-mail address is: info@smartmeterhealthalert.org
3. Contact your colleagues, fellow activists, physicians, engineers, parents of school children, politicians, list members, etc. to do the same (Steps 1 & 2 above).
OUR GOAL IS 100 LETTERS AND EMAILS that speak to the health effects of WiFi, the lack of evidence that it is safe, the irrelevance of FCC guidelines that deal only with thermal effects, and the relatively simple alternative: Wired Technology.
Inform them that the deadline to write and e-mail LAUSD and me their Letter is Monday before noon (PST), Feb. 11, so I will have enough time to make enough photocopies to enter all of your letters into the record at Tuesday’s meeting.
The meeting will be televised so your contributions will be memorialized. There are 51 Agenda Items on the day this will be heard. Again, this issue is Agenda Item 12. We are organizing people to go to the meeting to cede their time for a few key speakers. It may be necessary to reserve our place in line by camping on the street overnight. One of us will read the names of people and/or organizations at the podium TO GO ON RECORD.
With gratitude,
Ms. Shane Gregory
Administrator, SmartMeterHealthalert.org
E-mail: info@smartmeterhealthalert.org
In case you would like to read a stellar Letter to the LAUSD Board written by international EMF expert Cindy Sage, co-author of the seminal BioInitiative Report, regarding this Agenda Item, go here: Cindy Sage Letter to LAUSD
Ms. Sage has also informed LAUSD staff and representative leaders of organizations associated with LAUSD that:
“No positive assertion of safety can be made by LAUSD on potential health effects of chronic exposure of school children and pregnant women to wireless exposures that will occur with the proposed program your District is considering. This type of exposure has been classified as a Possible Human Carcinogen (Group 2B) as are DDT, lead and diesel exhaust. Wired internet connections are feasible and do not pose such health risks to children.
“I urge you to delay any approvals, funding or implementation of this risky and unwise technology, particularly when safe alternatives are available to provide high-quality technologies for learning and education. “
12. Board of Education Report No. 157 – 12/13 Facilities Services Division (Project Definition and Funding Strategy for the Common Core Technology Project Plan and Request for Funding Approval) Recommends approval of an amendment to the Information Technology Strategic Execution Plan to define and approve Phase 1 Planning and Readiness Common Core Technology Project Plan to provide technology infrastructure and software to equip 47 school sites in a pilot program. This project will be funded from school construction bond measures R and Y at an estimated cost of $50 million.
Please familiarize yourself with the accompanying Materials (Report) by LAUSD Supt. John Deasy — worth reading before you write your Letter to the LAUSD Board and send your copy to Ms. Gregory (this is a large document so give it a few minutes to open this link): LAUSD Board Meeting Item 12 Report
Go to the LAUSD Board website for instructions on how you must arrive early to sign-in if you want to give Public Comment at Tuesday’s School Board meeting.
You can also learn more about WiFi health effects by visiting the websites of:
Update (Feb. 8, 2012): Martha Herbert, PhD, MD, Harvard Faculty and Pediatric Neurologist at Boston General Hospital, has also written a letter to the LAUSD about “Wireless vs. Wired Classrooms” — please read it here: HerbertLetter2013-0208
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