For Those Who Care About Educating "Our Children" for their future's success…
Author: Janis Sexton
Retired elementary public school teacher; all thirty-eight years in Florida... Now spending my time advocating for our children, and their right to strong public school education...With an appreciation for the arts, and the magic in each day✨...
FIRST Posted on March 24, 2024…We had begun the 2024 Presidential Season with such Hope…
Furthermore, our efforts did not yield that Hope…The outcome was significantly influenced by a multitude of highly divisive strategies, which regrettably impact the future of our precious children…
We now have an opportunity to once again unite, with that “good trouble” agenda:
Congratulations to the many who actively participated in No KingsDay….
And since our last Presidential Election did not provide the opportunity to continue providing our precious children the tools and resources necessary…
This Easter Season is an amazing opportunity for our renewal, in starting over…
Especially, now when our children’s future is in jeopardy…
What once was...
We truly can focus on our precious children, and vote to reelect President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Vice President... Their advocacy and strides in making policy...that benefit the lives and future of our precious children...
At the present…In 2026, we can now more than ever be actively involved, united, and ready for any, all elections that focus on our Precious Children’s future...
No KingsDay👑 MARCH 28 NO THRONES, NO CROWNS, NO KINGS…
Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, Especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. The Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our souls when we look the other way…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last year, replacing them with vaccine skeptics. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
This week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the individual entrusted with safeguarding the health of 330 million Americans — posted a 90-second video of himself and Kid Rock doing shirtless calisthenics in blue jeans, riding a stationary bike in the sauna, doing a slow-motion cold plunge and toasting glasses of whole milk in the pool. The internet responded with memes and mockery. I sat in my office at UCLA, where I’ve practiced pulmonary and critical care medicine for more than 40 years, and I did not laugh.
Because here’s what was not in that video: the more than 2,200 Americans who contracted measles in 2025, in a country that effectively eliminated the disease in 2000. The three who died. The more than 900 confirmed cases already reported in the U.S. in 2026. The children in South Carolina — totaling nearly 1,000 cases from a single outbreak — whose parents were persuaded by rhetoric this secretary spent decades amplifying about how the MMR vaccine was more dangerous than the disease. It is not. Decades of rigorous science have shown it is not.
When the absurd reaches a certain pitch, mockery is a natural defense. But I worry we’ve become so numbed by spectacle, so conditioned to treat governance as entertainment, that we’ve lost our capacity for the emotion this moment demands: genuine outrage. The real thing. The kind that mobilizes physicians, parents and legislators to say, “This is not acceptable.”
Let me be precise about what Kennedy has done in his first year as HHS Secretary, because the shirtless antics are designed to distract you from it.
He fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the expert panel that has guided national vaccine policy for decades — and replaced them with vaccine skeptics. He forced out Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez. He cut National Institutes of Health funding, gutting cancer research and addiction treatment programs. He stopped federal support for mRNA research — one of the most significant advances in the history of immunology, being developed for vaccines against multiple sclerosis, influenza and certain cancers. When the FDA initially rejected Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine this month on what experts called ideological grounds, only public backlash forced a reversal — during one of the worst flu seasons in modern history.
Then, last month, Kennedy gutted the childhood immunization schedule, reducing universally recommended vaccines from ages 11 to 17. Hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus and influenza were relegated to “shared clinical decision-making” — a bureaucratic euphemism for abandonment. Routine recommendations trigger automatic prompts in electronic medical records and allow nurses to vaccinate under standing orders. Shared decision-making requires a physician at every vaccination decision, creating bottlenecks that will reduce uptake among the more than 100 million Americans without regular primary care access.
During Kennedy’s 2025 confirmation hearings, he told senators under oath: “I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican physician from Louisiana, voted to confirm Kennedy explicitly on those pledges. Every pledge has been broken. The lone Republican who voted against him — Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a polio survivor — warned his colleagues. They did not listen. Trust in the CDC has since plummeted from 66% to 54%. Confidence in MMR vaccine school requirements among Republicans has fallen 27 points in just six years.
These are not poll numbers. They are harbingers of future outbreaks, future hospitalizations, future deaths.
I’ve seen this before. I was an intern at UCLA in the early 1980s when the first cases of what we would come to call AIDS appeared on our wards — young men dying of infections we had never seen in previously healthy patients. I watched an institution and a government fail to respond with the urgency a nascent epidemic demanded, and I watched people die because of that failure. The lesson was not subtle: When public health leadership falters, when ideology supplants science, when the people in charge decide that politics matters more than medicine, people die. Not in the abstract. In beds. In hospitals. In Los Angeles.
I am watching it happen again. The United States is poised to lose its measles elimination status — an achievement that took decades to build. Kennedy’s newly appointed CDC deputy Ralph Abraham responded to this prospect by calling it “just the cost of doing business.” Three people died of measles in this country last year. The cost of doing business.
So, when I see the Secretary of Health and Human Services drinking whole milk in a pool with Kid Rock, I do not see comedy; nor should the response be memes or sarcasm. I see a man who bears direct responsibility for the resurgence of vaccine-preventable disease in the most medically advanced nation on Earth, performing a grotesque pantomime of wellness while children get sick. That is not a joke. It is a scandal. And it is long past time we treated it as one…
Robert B. Shpiner is a clinical professor of medicine at UCLA…
You will teach them to fly Not fly your flight You will teach them to dream Not dream your dream You will teach them to live Not live your life Every flight, life dream The print of the way you taught them will remain… #Children💕🙏🏼🌈
~ Mother Teresa Art…Perodog via Devianta
Yes…I do believe…
We have a good fight ahead.. With Love and Hope for Our Precious Children’s Future… 🙏🏼♥️🍎🕊🌎
~You can run for office
~You can donate to a candidate you believe in
~You can protest
~You can call your representative
~You can read the newspaper instead of Twitter…
You can volunteer…
You can donate to a cause you believe in…
You can stay here and fight!
And… Most importantly… You can vote … #everyelection
When will we determine the appropriate moment to initiate impeachment proceedings, or even to advance this process? Our governmental institutions are jeopardized by the overt actions of an unethical and immoral president who seemingly believes he can act with impunity… Each passing day underscores this concern…
The future of our precious children is currently at a critical juncture…
#impeach #GoodTrouble
A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.
Have we learned any lessons from our past? Our country remains divided, and our leaders have not adequately funded our schools to support the success of many children…
Our Precious Children’s Hope…
I hope this New Year brings more opportunities for learning…Let’s all work together supporting their efforts..Keeping our schools happy and safe…
Ever so Hoping for that better day…
We are so much better when we are united in Humanity…
Tis the Season of Giving… PeaceAnd…. AlTogetherLove…
Be kind and compassionate to one another..." Ephesians 4:32
Gun legislation is a partisan issue across the U.S., with Democratic-led states enacting more limits on access to guns and efforts to tighten gun laws often failing in Republican-controlled legislatures…
We are currently experiencing a period of significant division and urgency. Our children are facing significant challenges;
Educators are actively addressing safety concerns…
Education, social skill development, and creative expression were integral components of our children’s daily experiences…
This is now their new reality, as we are not addressing the prospect of gun reform…
Along with stop, drop and roll, some states are teaching students to ‘Stop and don’t touch that gun
ByKRISTIN M. HALL Associated Press and ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. — This school year, students in elementary, middle and high schools in some states will get a new lesson on safety: what to do if they find a firearm.
Arkansas, Tennessee and Utah are the first states to enact laws that require public schools to teach children as young as 5 the basics of gun safety and how to properly store guns in the home. Only Utah’s law allows students to opt out of the lesson if requested by parents or guardians.
A similar law in Arizona was vetoed by the Democratic governor, and lawmakers in at least five other states have introduced such proposals, putting schools at the forefront of yet another debate about gun violence.
In Tennessee, lesson plans could include stickers, games, quizzes, or videos with music and colorful firearm illustrations, including a gun made out of Lego-style bricks and an explanation of what a muzzleloader is.
The reality is that many children in the U.S. grow up around firearms.
At Berclair Elementary School in Memphis, a class of 16 fifth graders were asked how many had seen a real gun. Nearly all raised their hands.
“It just shows you how much a class like this is needed,” said Tammie Chapman, a health and physical education instructor, who has been leading the lessons at this school.
“While there is some controversy around guns, there doesn’t always have to be,” said Emily Buck, director of public relations for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, which created a curriculum with the state Department of Education. “I think that having some education and foundational knowledge really can be beneficial in the long run.”
The lessons are often adapted from hunting safety courses already administered by state hunting and wildlife agencies, but with key differences.
Hunter safety courses typically involve hands-on instruction and explanations of how to safely handle and fire a gun. These classroom lessons, on the other hand, emphasize that children should not touch a firearm…
In Tennessee, the legislation prohibits any use of actual firearms, but in Arkansas, the law allows parents to opt into alternative curriculums, such as an off-campus firearm safety course that could include live guns.
The main takeaway is a series of steps for when a child finds a gun: Stop, don’t touch, leave quickly, tell an adult. This is consistent with instructions created by other organizations, including one from the National Rifle Association that features animated characters, videos and coloring pages.
At Berclair Elementary School, the faculty designed a relay-race game to keep students engaged. In the gym, students took turns running to buckets that had different photos. Students who found a picture of a gun then reported it to one of the adults. They also listened to a catchy jingle emphasizing the steps.
Buck acknowledged that adults might be the ones responsible for creating unsafe situations at home and said children should be prepared if they find guns in unusual spots, like on shelves or under a mattress.
“We hope that maybe students will take some of what they learned back to their house, back to the parents and maybe they’ll encourage their parents to adjust their storage method,” said Buck.
Gun legislation is a partisan issue across the U.S., with Democratic-led states enacting more limits on access to guns and efforts to tighten gun laws often failing in Republican-controlled legislatures…
This was my last very special Thanksgiving post from November 1st…2014…
Our precious children, even more so today, need to feel loved and safe; provided with the tools that foster their Educational Path to a Successful Life Full of Heart...
Being at a school with a diverse population, I have found this time of year is quite a stressful time for the children…In addition,with more expectations from such a demanding curriculum than ever before…So many of my children came to me struggling because their lives are so difficult…
As their teacher, I must keep the rigors of the classroom curriculum moving along with understanding and inspiration…I reach out to my young parents providing them with knowledge about providing their child a daily reading and homework time…Encouraging parents to put their child to bed at an early bedtime…I use myself as a role model for my parents and children…Because, I myself have to be ready for school by 6:30AM..I must be in bed by 7:30-8:00PM…I share so much of personal habits of organization with my children and their parents…
It is my hope that I will empower my children and parents to appreciate these values that will foster their child success in school…
Some of my parents will…However many do not… Their child may struggle…
It will always be my responsibility to provide the safety and structure…Through this beautiful season of “Fall Holidays”…Providing Love and Giving Thanks…
Janis Sexton...Teacher...Advocate 