On November 7, 2020, Joe Biden was projected to win the 2020 Election, and today he will inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. He is expected to begin making policy changes immediately, and a lot of people think that those changes will hurt our schools and our community. In reality, President Biden’s policies will be good for Glendale High School and our community in general.
President Biden is already surrounded with people who are good for schools. Jill Biden, our future First Lady, is a teacher. She’s been a teacher for decades and she might even continue teaching as a First Lady which I’ve never seen someone do before. It’s good to have someone who can understand us to be in the White House.
President Biden plans on working with schools to make mental health professionals more accessible to students. He went through a lot of bullying when he was a kid, because he stuttered when he spoke. He was having hard times at school, because he was bullied by his teachers and classmates and he was not allowed to run for student body president. They didn’t have many resources back then to help people who had speech impediments, but we currently do. Biden believes that there should be more social workers in schools, which will make it easier for people to get the help they need.
One thing that Biden will do is fill his cabinet with people who are actually helpful and believe in science. Betsy DeVos was the Secretary of Education during the Trump administration and she hates public schools. She never went to a public school and she’s often booed and taunted when she enters a university to give a speech, which makes me feel bad for her sometimes. Although she has resigned after what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, appointing a good Secretary of Education, like Miguel Cardona, will set us on the right path.
President Biden is also planning on increasing the national minimum wage to $15 an hour which will be helpful to many people here in Glendale and beyond. I see this as the most noticeable and influential change. The current minimum wage in California is $12/hour and it’s set to become $15/hour by 2023. The minimum wage in Glendale is $13/hour for businesses that have 26 or more employees. The minimum age to work in California is 14 which means almost everyone in GHS will be affected by this.
We might also see noticeable changes in our immigration policy. Over a third of LA county’s population are immigrants. In fact, Kamala Harris, our new Vice President, is a daughter of immigrants. President Biden plans on creating a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. We will have a front row seat to see how this plays out.
There should definitely be improvements to education and minimum wage if we want to see positive changes in our community. These changes will help us by improving our daily lives in ways that we haven’t seen before. President Joe Biden plans on working with people on both sides to bring people together. So until that day arrives, all we have to do is stay civil and be nice to each other.
