National Third Graders Day, housing, federal cuts

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Thank you for reading this letter. My name is Karen Wadena, and I was just wondering why third-grade kids don’t have National Third Graders Day? There is a National Fourth Graders Day, so why can’t we have a National Third Graders Day? I saw how the fourth grade was having fun on their day this year. Some people in other grades were saying it was unfair. Some people were saying it was fair because that is their day. That is what made me think, “Woah, can we have a National Third Graders Day?”

One of my teachers helped me look it up, and we learned two teachers in New Jersey created National Fourth Graders Day. I figured I could work with my teachers and create National Third Graders Day. My teachers and I propose March 3 be named National Third Graders Day. If the third falls on a weekend, schools can celebrate the next Monday. Gov. Tim Walz, will you help us by declaring March 3 Third Graders Day in Minnesota? Other teachers and schools, will you join us this year on Monday, March 3 to celebrate? If you are reading this, thank you very much.

Karen Wadena and Desiree Reine

Wadena is a third grader at Naytahwaush Community Charter School, and Reine is an educational consultant.

The Thursday, Jan. 30 Minnesota Star Tribune’s top front-page article about home insurance is quite informative (“ ‘It’s a Disaster, Quite Frankly’ ”). It does an excellent job of helping those of us shocked by the high increases in our home insurance costs over the past few years understand why our premiums have gone up.

It comes as no surprise that the biggest factor is the increasing frequency of damaging storms and fires, or as an expert quoted in the article called them, “high-dollar climate catastrophes.” These catastrophes cause increasing costs to the companies so they have to raise our rates or get out of the business.