Celebrate Read Across America Day -  March 2 is "Read Across America Day."  Books and stories provide points of access for understanding other people's lives, to walk in someone else’s shoes—or to try on a different hat! We did Read Across America this morning and had so much fun. That video will be up at www.utd.org for parents to watch with their children so please take advantage of this wonderful resource. 

 Why Reading Aloud to Kids Helps Them Thrive (PBS for parents) 

Reading aloud to kids has clear cognitive benefits. For example, brain scans show that hearing stories strengthens the part of the brain associated with visual imagery, story comprehension, and word meaning. One study found that kindergarten children who were read to at least three times a week had a “significantly greater phonemic awareness than did children who were read to less often.” And the landmark Becoming a Nation of Readers report from 1985 concluded that “the single most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”

On this Day:  – March 2, 1955: Claudette Colvin Refuses to Give Up Her Bus Seat (Zinn Education Project) 

I could not move, because history had me glued to the seat. . . It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another shoulder, and I could not move.  — Claudette Colvin 

At age 15, on March 2, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman. Colvin was motivated by what she had been learning in school about African American history and the U.S. Constitution. 

Why is March Women’s History Month? 

Besides International Women's Day on March 8, March holds a few more important milestones for women's history:

• Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in all federally funded education programs, was passed by the Senate on March 1, 1972. It became law later that year. In fact, the educators who formed the first Women's History Week a few years later did so to help schools comply with Title IX regulations. 
• The Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment which guarantees rights regardless of sex past those assured by the 19th Amendment, passed the Senate on March 22, 1972. (P.S. -- it's still not fully ratified.) 
• Earlier in the 20th century, two significant women's suffrage events took place in March. The first major suffragist parade took over Washington, DC, on March 3, 1913, and the National Woman's Party, a political group dedicated to women's suffrage, was officially formed in March 1917.

Today is the first day of the state legislative session. Often that seems far removed from our every day lives here, but the decisions these folks in Tallahassee make have significant consequences in the lives of each and every one of us. We are going to talk about these issues and, more importantly, ask you to take action every week so the peoples’ voices are heard in Tallahassee and beyond. 

When she stepped onto the sidewalk behind the Broward County Main Library Friday, it had been 271 days since LaToya Ratlieff stood at that unassuming street corner in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The last time she was there, in May, a police officer shot her in the face with a rubber bullet while she peacefully protested the death of George Floyd.

“I really never left this corner,” Ratlief said Friday. “I left, but in reality I’m here all of the time.” 

Ratlieff has suffered from de