[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1625-E1627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              YOUTH ISSUES

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 6, 1998

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have printed in the Record 
this statement by a high school student from my home state of Vermont, 
who was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young 
people today.


       Rachel Salyer. My name is Rachel Salyer. I am a senior the 
     Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans.
       I think there are so many issues surrounding the youth of 
     today, things like success--we care pressured to succeed in 
     life, whether that is monetarily, or just self. And the 
     adults in the community don't seem to be helping very much. 
     When adults, parents and other adults alike throughout 
     Vermont and the nation characterize teenagers as all being 
     troublemakers or all being people who drink or party, then 
     they are sending a message to the youth of the community that 
     they don't care about our future, because it is our future, 
     and they are not going to be around for it, and it is our own 
     fault, basically.
       These stereotypes are wrong. Not all youth in Vermont are 
     people who like to drink, people who like to do drugs, people 
     who go to parties every weekend. That's why organizations 
     such as Green Mountain Prevention Project are such an 
     important part of Vermont youth, because they sponsor 
     programs like the Green Mountain Teens, which is a group of 
     teens who have gotten together, who try to make other teens 
     aware that there are all these issues surrounding them, that 
     parents and adults have this image of us, and we want to try 
     and change it.

[[Page E1626]]

       Basically, what the Green Mountain Teens do is, we are a 
     peer-awareness and prevention group. We provide healthy 
     alternatives to doing drugs or drinking and things like that. 
     We have coffee houses, we have haunted houses, winter balls, 
     dances, anything you can imagine, any other kind of healthy 
     lifestyle habit, we promote that, in order to tell teens that 
     there is something else out there. We are setting examples 
     for teens by being teens, and telling them that there are 
     other choices. And we are trying to show the adults in the 
     community that we need their support also, that we recognize 
     there is a problem, and that it needs to be changed.
       Congressman Sanders. Thank you very much.


    Statement by Josh Lemieux, Mark Boyle, Carl Halbach and Richard 
            Gonzales regarding Skateboard Community Building

       Carl Halbach. First off, thank you for inviting us here. 
     The point we are trying to prove today is, we have changed 
     our community outlook and image from a negative to a positive 
     outlook.
       Mark Boyle. A lot of groups here are talking about things 
     they would like to do and things that they think need to be 
     done, or processes they need to do. We would like to prove 
     that it works. We did a lot of community service and got help 
     from a lot of the community members in order to enhance what 
     we enjoy. And this is one of those things that a lot of these 
     groups out there need to think about doing, and this is how 
     they need to do it, just like get a lot of help from the 
     community and be able to follow the guidelines that the adult 
     world uses, and not dwell on the fact they need to let us do 
     what we want to do, because we are going to do it anyways.
       Richard Gonzales. Basically, I looked at the State of 
     Vermont, and I seen that they don't recognize extreme sports 
     as one of the big issues, as like physical activities, and, 
     you know, we just took it upon ourselves to build our own 
     park and raise money, and do stuff like that, try to help our 
     city out.
       Josh Lemieux. Right now, we are building a new skate park. 
     We just got done. It ran for like five years, and was getting 
     too small. Right now, we are moving and expanding to a bigger 
     skate park, and doing this by ourselves. And we have a grant 
     from a couple of companies, and we are just raising money 
     right now. We have the communities behind us, just trying to.
       Carl, did you want to add something?
       Carl Halbach. Yes. We basically went around asking for 
     donations, seeing who would like to help us. A lot of the 
     times, we worked for the money, instead of having it handed 
     to us. There is a sliding hill near our town. And we decided 
     to go clean it up and put up all new fences and paint the 
     buildings and take them down and rebuild them again, so they 
     are in a much better condition, and made the sliding hill 
     much more safe.
       Congressman Sanders. Are we talking about St. Albans?
       Carl Halbach. Yes.
       Congressman Sanders. Mark, did you want to add anything. We 
     have done this all by ourselves. We have guidance or some 
     outstanding citizens in our community, Miss Gridmore and 
     Doctor Chip. I mean, they don't do work for us, but they help 
     organize stuff, because not all community members are going 
     to be totally accepting of a bunch of rag-tag kids coming and 
     saying, can we do some work for money so we can do this, or 
     can we have community support, and she helped us work through 
     the right channels and we are really appreciate it.
       Congressman Sanders. This is an excellent presentation.


   Statement by Erica Hepp, Michelle Patterson, Amanda Bruchs, Ryan 
 Bagley, Kyle Lynch and Paul Berry regarding Costs of Higher Education

       Kyle Lynch. We are students at Milton High School, and we 
     will be speaking about the cost of higher education. We think 
     the cost of higher education is too high. The students in the 
     middle income bracket are in a tough position. There is not 
     enough Merit aid available and not enough incentive for 
     students to do well.
       Amanda Bruchs. College costs are rising, making it nearly 
     impossible for students to afford a higher education. The 
     average total of tuition, room and board nationally for a 
     private college is $17,636, and $11,444 for a public school. 
     This year my tuition, room and board costs for St. Lawrence 
     University, a private institution, are approximately $31,000. 
     This amount stands to increase every year. $31,000 is over 
     half of my parent's income. The Federal Government needs to 
     do something to curb college costs now, before higher 
     education becomes a luxury that only a privileged few can 
     afford.
       Michelle Patterson. These high costs make it difficult for 
     those of us in the middle income bracket to finance our 
     college education. In many cases, our parents make too much 
     money to qualify for scholarships. The scholarships are need-
     based. Therefore, even the most talented students receive 
     limited funds. We are left with an abundance of costs for 
     which we must find money to pay. Our parents do not make 
     enough money to help us. We are forced to take out loans we 
     will be paying back for years after we graduate.
       Ryan Bagley. Increasingly, more and more, colleges are 
     straying from giving out Merit money to basing their need on 
     financial need. This year, at our school, we had two National 
     Merit scholars, neither of which received any merit-based 
     money. Colleges are giving out more scholarships money to 
     athletes than to students. Out of the 69 scholarships in this 
     VISAC scholarships pamphlet, only 21 of them are not based on 
     financial need. Of those 21, only 17 are open to high school 
     students, most of which are for such a small amount of money, 
     they don't even put a dent in the cost of college.
       Erica Hepp. With the cost of college becoming more 
     expensive, there is also not as much motivation for students 
     to do well in school. We have always been told that hard work 
     would get us a college education, but that is not the case 
     anymore. I am the valedictorian of my class, and the rest of 
     the students with me are all in the top ten percent, yet none 
     of us have been rewarded financially for our efforts. I will 
     be paying $30,000 a year to go to my first choice school. 
     Other students at Milton have had to settle for safety 
     schools because of financial reasons.
       There needs to be more financial incentive for students to 
     achieve high standards in school. Right now, school 
     achievement just doesn't make a difference.
       Paul Berry. In light of all these points, what we want is 
     federal legislation that will lower the cost of higher 
     education and the ability to get more financial and Merit 
     aid.
       Congressman Sanders: Excellent.


Statement by Jess Walters, and Linh Nguyen, and Ryna Lafebvre, and Gary 
              Bailey regarding Burlington's Old North End.

       Ryan Lefebvre. Hello. My name is Ryan. I am here to 
     represent Burlington's Old North End. We decided that one of 
     the most important issues to us is how teens in the Old North 
     End spend their out-of-school hours.
       Each day, teens in the Old North End decide how they will 
     spend at least five of their waking hours when not in school. 
     For many of these, the hours harbor both risk and 
     opportunity.
       For many that are home alone, the out-of-school hours 
     present serious risks for substance abuse, crime, violence 
     and sexual activity, leading to unwanted pregnancy and 
     sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. Time spent 
     alone is not the crucial contributor to higher risk; rather, 
     it is what young people do during that time, where they do 
     it, and with whom, that leads to positive or negative 
     consequences.
       According to a 1990 survey, my community contains 29 
     percent of the Burlington's population, and has the highest 
     percentage of people of color in the city. Over half of the 
     households are female-headed, and over 60 percent of these 
     families live below the poverty line.
       Poverty is especially pronounced for the Old North End's 
     children, 42 percent of whom lived in poverty in 1990. That 
     percentage is higher today. The Old North End has 32.1 
     percent of its residents living below the poverty level, 
     compared with 19.3 percent for the city as a whole.
       Recently, a number of focus groups were held, where youth, 
     senior citizens, and business people spoke out about concerns 
     they have about the Old North End. The following issues and 
     concerns were continually mentioned: Public drinking, drug 
     dealing, continuing poverty, racial tensions, and potential 
     gang violence.
       We proposed a teen center that would directly address many 
     of our community concerns, as well as issues many of you will 
     be presenting later today. Jessica is now going to tell you 
     why there is a need for our teen center in Burlington.
       Jessica Walters. Hello. My name is Jessica Walters.
       Yes, there are other teen centers in Burlington, but there 
     are many reasons why they do not meet our needs.
       First, they all have limited teen hours. For instance, I 
     have nowhere to go after school until 5:30, and most youth 
     centers close at 9:00 at night. My friends usually hang out 
     on the street until teen hours start or until they have to go 
     home.
       Due to things mentioned by Ryan, North Street isn't really 
     a safe place for teens to hang out. Most of the teens that 
     live in the Old North End go to Burlington High School, where 
     there is no computer and Internet access available to us 
     after school. Currently, there is nowhere to go to do 
     research or study after school hours. The other youth centers 
     don't have a place for us to do this.
       The final issue is the adults' role. Other youth centers 
     have too much supervision and not enough opportunity for 
     independence and creativity. There are also a lot of little 
     kids around.
       Now Gary is going to tell you about what our teen center 
     will be like.
       Gary Bailey. Hello. My name is Gary, and I would like to 
     tell you about our teen center.
       Our teen center will be run by youth, it will be for ages 
     13 through 19, and it will be free of charge. We feel that it 
     should be open for longer hours, like she said before, 
     because other teen programs like the one we want to open will 
     have to be open for younger children also, so we only have a 
     section of the day that we can go there, so we are still out 
     in the streets.
       We feel that it should have a resource room run by adults, 
     with a minilibrary, mentoring and tutoring facilities, a 
     career college center, and information on social services. 
     Also, a job board for a list for people to get jobs easily, 
     and maybe once a week somebody in there helping them out, 
     somebody like Becky Trudeau or something,

[[Page E1627]]

     where they won't have to go five different places to look for 
     a job, they can just go there and have one place to look.
       We feel that it should have a computer room, with Internet 
     access. A lot of people work right after school, and they 
     have to be there around 3:30, including us. And we don't have 
     the time to go after school and work on the computers to get 
     an essay done, so we feel that it should have computers where 
     it will be available for us after work.
       We think there should be recreational rooms, including a 
     gym, a game room. Also special events, such as, once a month, 
     a dance or some sort like that. We also think there should be 
     a lounge so that we can relax and watch TV.
       Congressman Sanders. Good. Linh, do you want to begin?
       Linh Nguyen. My name is Linh Nguyen. We would like to ask 
     for continued support in finding out how we should embark on 
     this teen center and after school program. We strongly 
     believe this would make the Old North End a better place for 
     teens, and not only the teens, but the community as a whole. 
     We would, as well, be a model to replicate in the rest of 
     Vermont.
       Congressman Sanders. Thank you very much. Thank you all 
     very much.

     

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