Dear Governor Vilsack,

          We are elementary students at Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  We are writing to let you know some of the things we have been doing to make our school a better place.  We have a Citizenship program that includes topics about respect, learning, responsibility, attitude and honesty.  Every month we have a theme for our Citizenship program.  This month’s theme is “Ideas That Help.”  Our entire school has used their ideas to help bring in money for the Tsunami victims.  We have done some school-wide fundraising with Friday’s being hat day.  Students are allowed to wear their own hats when they bring in a dollar to the donation fund.  Other classes and groups have done their own individual projects to get involved.

          We have done many projects this year to help other people such as giving, doing acts of common good and being a buddy to others.  These projects have taught us that it is important to be involved in our school and community.  Together all of us can and have made a difference!

          Soon we will all get to view our “Be a Buddy, Not a Bully!” video that was inspired by the kids here at PLS.  This program taught us what it meant to be a buddy, to be a bully, or what to do if someone is bullying us.  We work hard every day to show that we are all buddies in some way.  Like our pledge says, “We want Price Lab School to be a safe and happy place for all!”  We learned that you are interested in hearing about schools that work on being safe and bully-free.  Because of that, we wanted to invite you to our school to watch our “Be a Buddy, Not a Bully!” video with us.

          We would like to share our program with you and show you the amazing things we have done this year at Price Lab School.  We know that you are very busy and have a very important job, but we want you to see how important feeling safe and learning is to us!