Latest news with #MoriahRatner
IOL News
26-05-2025
- General
- IOL News
Students at Whitman Middle School learn life skills through chicken care
Whitman Middle School students care for the flock of Novogen browns, cleaning the coop, helping feed them and gathering eggs. Image: Moriah Ratner/For The Washington Post On a sunny morning in a small courtyard at Walt Whitman Middle School in Virginia, a 14-year-old with a purple buzz cut cradled a plump chicken in her arms. 'Her name is Betsy,' Maicy Nealy, an eighth-grader at the Alexandria school, said as the animal's eyes softly fluttered shut in her lap. As a young child, Nealy was afraid of chickens. Now she spends hours after school collecting their eggs and cleaning the coop for the school's five hens. And though she says she was never an outdoorsy type, she feeds them their worm meals as well. The chicken program at Whitman started about a year ago when after-school program specialist Lee Maguire - a.k.a. 'Chicken Daddy' - planned a month-long embryo development program for kids to learn about biology and anatomy. Video Player is loading. 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Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Walt Whitman Middle School eighth-graders Jonas Figueroa, left, and Maicy Nealy hold chickens in the courtyard at the Alexandria school. Image: Moriah Ratner/For The Washington Post Maguire runs a variety of programs but has an affinity for agriculture. He studied resilient and sustainable communities in graduate school, he said. The egg incubator soon became a mainstay at the campus in spring 2024. As the eggs hatched, so did interest among Whitman students, who filed in and out of Maguire's office to see the fetuses developing and then started visiting him to pet the babies. 'They've known them since they were the little yellow, fuzzy, down, cute little morsels,' Maguire said. Whitman staff saw how much the kids enjoyed spending time with the chickens and decided to keep them around indefinitely, Maguire said. And as the seventh-graders who interacted with the babies one year ago transitioned into eighth-graders, the chicks transitioned into red-feathered, yellow-eyed adult hens. A chicken tries to escape from the arms of Whitman eighth-grader Savannah Lee Image: Moriah Ratner/For The Washington Post The kids soon got attached to the chickens and the chickens to the kids. The chickens even recognize the kids' faces and voices, Maguire added, and waddle toward the door when they spot the students arriving. Throughout the school year, staff said, they've observed students gaining not only companionship from the animals but some life skills as well. The students replenish the feed supply - which costs about $25 for 50 pounds - with proceeds from selling some of the eggs the chickens produce at $5 to $10 a dozen. Maguire noted that the programme's inception coincided with a rising market demand for cheaper eggs. 'We got super lucky that egg prices skyrocketed so it seemed like, 'Whoa, what a deal,'' Maguire said. 'It also builds their ability to understand how to make a program sustainable and lasting.' As the chickens ambled over to the coop and pecked at the air for a snack, Nealy approached the food supply and asked Maguire about the feed bucket. For the teen, the chickens provided structure after school and piqued her interest in agriculture. She's even forgiven the one that snatched her bracelet, Nealy said, stroking its back as the bird opened its tiny, narrow mouth and yawned. Now she can't imagine an adulthood without chickens involved. 'I want to at least own five. Max … maybe max … 15 max,' she said, adding that when she grows up, she plans to be 'a lawyer that owns chickens.' Savannah Lee, 14, said the chicken caretaking became a nice way to unwind and de-stress after school. She also takes pride in knowing her work is contributing to their quality of life. 'Animals can live better if other animals help take care of them,' Lee said, patting a pressure point on a chicken's neck to relax her. And the benefit goes both ways. Spending time with the chickens helps Lee manage feelings of frustration and anger that may flare up during the day, she said. The chickens' calming presence on campus is an advantage of the program that the school's social workers and counselors quickly picked up on as well, Maguire said. They sometimes escort struggling students outside to the coop to help them calm down or sort through their feelings. 'It's a moment that they don't have to think about housing insecurity, food insecurity, if their parents are going to get deployed, how they're going to have to improve their grades because they're struggling,' he said. 'The chickens don't judge, they just love them. It's a peaceful escape.' Said Jonas Figueroa, 14: 'They comfort you, instead of you comforting them.' Figueroa isn't particularly interested or strong in academics, he said. He participates in sports but isn't terribly coordinated, either. The chicken work is where he excels, he said. 'I'm doing school subjects and I'm thinking, 'I'm not really good at this.' But then it leads you to think, 'What are my talents really?' And then you come out to the chickens and you realize you can put a chicken to sleep and you're like, 'Oh, I guess I'm good at handling chickens,'' Figueroa said. As the school year comes to an end, the chickens and the students prepare to part ways. The students will go home and brace for starting high school, while the chickens will spend the summer shacked up with Maguire. But first, he has a surprise he's going to let the kids in on soon. 'I bought more baby chicks,' he said. 'I got them eight more.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Pregnant Foreign Aid Workers Beg Trump Administration for Compassion Amid Cuts
Moriah Ratner/For The Washington Post The Trump administration's cuts are stripping expectant parents of their parental leave, health insurance, income and, for overseas USAID workers, housing. President Donald Trump has said 'we want more babies,' and the White House has reportedly examined ways to persuade Americans to have more children. But the actions of the Elon Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service have left many pregnant federal workers without the parental leave, health insurance and income they had thought they could rely on when they chose to conceive. Pregnant employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has many overseas workers and has been gutted by DOGE-driven cuts, are in particularly dire straits. Many of the agency's workers are losing their housing along with some or all of their parental leave as they're forced to move back to the United States from abroad ahead of their due dates. Dozens of expectant parents employed by USAID have begged the State Department to postpone their dismissals, which are set for July 1 or Sept. 2, or honor previously guaranteed parental leave. So far, they have received little help – and say that laying them off within days or weeks of their due dates flies in the face of the Trump administration's commitment to a pro-family agenda. 'I am almost wishing I deliver prematurely so that at least I would still have coverage after I deliver,' said one woman whose family lives overseas and whose baby is set to arrive within days of her husband's layoff date. 'Then at least it comes out. It can get the help it needs before my health insurance cuts off.' The Washington Post interviewed 13 expecting or postpartum parents who say the Trump administration's cuts have forced them to make overseas moves, ripped away their housing or eliminated their parental leave. The mass layoffs also strip pregnant and postpartum workers of their health insurance and income, leaving many uncertain about where they will live and how they will pay for postpartum medical care. Many of the agency's workers lack homes in the United States, don't have spouses with independent incomes and rely on specific pregnancy-related travel and lodging benefits. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a group of diplomats in February that the agency would consider making accommodations for employees in need, including in situations such as pregnancy. So far, expecting families say, such accommodations haven't materialized. The State Department did not answer questions from The Post about whether officials were considering granting the expecting workers' requests to postpone layoff dates. A spokesperson said the cuts made some 'disruptions' inevitable but said Rubio and department leaders were committed to 'ensuring that USAID personnel remain safe.' 'State and USAID leadership are focused on providing the smoothest transitions possible to minimize disruption and ensure the continued safety and wellness of our personnel, and the orderly repatriation of colleagues posted overseas,' the State Department spokesperson said. The families described a more than two-month period of uncertainty and confusion that has caused stress so extreme some women feared for the health of their pregnancies – or began regretting the decision to have a baby entirely. The families interviewed by The Post – with due dates ranging from spring to late summer – all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared that being identified as having spoken to the press could affect their requests for relief. Workers said they had received little response to their individual appeals to postpone their layoff dates over the last several weeks. A group of more than a dozen USAID employees sent a fresh plea to the State Department on Tuesday, asking for the travel and lodging benefits and paid parental leave to be guaranteed for all families who have requested pregnancy-related extensions. 'I thought my situation might be special because it was pregnancy-related, because it involved the life of an unborn child,' one father-to-be who will lose his job and overseas home two weeks before his wife's scheduled C-section said in an interview this week. 'Here's an American child. … But no, there's absolutely no consideration.' The expecting USAID workers have formed an anonymous group chat for pregnant employees that has about 70 members, though some are from the same families. Based on the group chat, one member estimated that at least two to three dozen expecting families are being affected by the layoffs. In response to questions from The Post, a State Department spokesperson said USAID employees can request reasonable or medical accommodations and have done so. The spokesperson noted that employee benefits won't be impacted until the date their employment ends and that overseas personnel would retain their housing until their separation dates but did not say whether the State Department would consider postponing those dates. The State Department has guaranteed benefits for 45 days before birth and 45 days postpartum – special benefits known as medical evacuation that are separate from parental leave – for those who leave to give birth while employed. Employees who begin that 90-day period will be able to complete it before the government ends their employment, the State Department said. Employees said they remained uncertain as to whether people whose layoff dates fall within that 90-day period will receive the full benefits. One woman who is scheduled to lose her job before the period is up said she has not received clarity from the State Department about the situation. USAID – which distributes billions in lifesaving food, water and medical aid a year and runs humanitarian projects around the globe – was one of the first agencies the Trump administration began to dismantle under DOGE's stated mission of reducing alleged government waste. On March 28, the Trump administration moved to formally abolish the agency and eliminated most of those left in their jobs, sending out notices with July 1 or Sept. 2 layoff dates. When those notices set off crises for families overseas with children in school, receiving medical treatment, expecting babies or in other circumstances, the State Department seemed ill-prepared to respond, the workers interviewed for this story said. Rubio told staffers at the February meeting that the State Department did not want to uproot families. 'That's not our intention. We don't want to achieve that,' he said, according to CBS News. He cited pregnant workers or people needing medical care as examples of people who might need exceptions. The parents interviewed by The Post said those assurances now feel like empty promises. By Wednesday, several told The Post they were still hoping the State Department would provide a solution to a situation that feels increasingly desperate. The woman whose C-section is two weeks after her husband's layoff date is stuck overseas, unable to travel to the United States because of pregnancy complications. They will lose their housing just before birth and plan on draining their savings to move into a vacation rental, the couple said. Another family has to return overseas to pack up their home after their baby comes – forcing the mother and newborn to stay in the United States alone while the father goes back for their possessions. The mother said she is so consumed with making appeals to higher-ups and job-hunting that she sometimes forgets she's pregnant. She dwells on guilt about bringing her baby into an unstable situation. She refused her doctor's suggestion to induce labor because she didn't feel ready to give birth. A third mother is set to lose her government health insurance less than two weeks before her due date and is afraid she will also lose the money she saved for the delivery in her flexible spending account. If so, she doesn't know how she will pay for the delivery. 'I feel betrayed,' she said. 'I come from a politically mixed family, so I want to believe that someone like Marco Rubio, when he says that he's going to make accommodations for families. … I wanted to believe that that was true.' Instead, she sees the administration as having disrespected families who are in turmoil. 'It makes me feel like a fool for believing in the bipartisan process, I guess,' she said. 'Because I know the Trump voters in my family would not agree with the way I'm being treated right now.' In addition to stressing about where her family will live after the baby comes, she and her husband are mourning the loss of their vision for their family. She is pregnant with their second child, and they had always planned to have a third – but now, they are reconsidering that idea because of the financial impacts of the layoffs. 'I feel like I'm grieving. I was really excited for the life that I was going to give my kids,' she said. 'And I'm just grieving that I won't be able to give them that life anymore.'
