West Junior High School students travel the hallway between classes in Feb. 2009.

Barack Obama

West Junior High School students travel the hallway between classes earlier this month. Some of them shared what their agenda would be for President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama has a long list of tasks awaiting him as he starts his tenure in the White House.

But we wondered: What do junior high students think should be on the new president’s to-do list?

We asked students at West Junior High School for their top-five tasks for Obama. Here are some of their responses.

Jon Fitzgerald, ninth grade

1. Lower tuition for college

2. Four-day school week

3. Bring the troops back from Iraq

4. Raise taxes on cigarettes

5. National Neil Young Day

Merete Lych, eighth grade

1. Donate large sums of money to Kansas and Missouri Humane Societies

2. Support campaigns to help the poor and less fortunate

3. Allow public junior high and high schools to have diet soda as a drink option for lunch

4. Have fireworks all night long on the Fourth of July at the White House

5. Make computer prices a lot cheaper

Makayla Dultmeier, ninth grade

1. Quit making us go to school so early, and let us eat whenever we want to

2. Make school a choice, if we want an education or not

3. Make it so we don’t have to pay taxes

4. Eliminate the curfew law for kids

Trevor Vanahill, ninth grade

1. Lower the age for teens to get jobs

2. No toll booths

3. Free school lunches

4. Require school lunches to be real food that is cooked, not reheated after being frozen or days.

5. Give me weekly checks of at least $10,000 or so

Logan Smith, ninth grade

1. Put me on a commercial with you

2. Let me come over to your house

3. Play me in Madden ’09

4. Play me in one-on-one in basketball

5. Make me my own T-shirt clothing line

Tim Turner, ninth grade

1. Bring our troops home from Iraq

2. Pass the stimulus package

3. Build a basketball court in the White House

4. Stop gay marriage

5. Help the global warming cause

Alijah Kraus, ninth grade

1. Stop smoking

2. Start peace

3. Lower the drinking age

4. Lower taxes

5. Come to West Junior High!

Rachel Harkin, ninth grade

1. Create programs where homeless people receive shelter and food for work

2. Get our troops out of Iraq, but keep helping them out

3. Stress the fact that we need to recycle and reuse

4. Put more funding into stem cell research

5. Provide better health care for middle and lower classes

Montana Locke, eighth grade

1. Lower the driving age

2. Lower the voting age

3. Give younger people the right to work at a younger age

4. Allow the schools to take students on trips

5. Allow people to actually have freedom of speech without someone getting mad

Paul McClellan, eighth grade

1. Lower the age for driving by a year

2. Lower the age for jobs by a year

3. Make cigarettes illegal

4. Lower the drinking age

5. Lower gas prices

John Wade, ninth grade

1. Make college more affordable

2. Make it so jobs don’t require a degree

3. Make abortion illegal

4. Reduce the dependence on foreign oil

5. Save the environment

Joseph Topp, ninth grade

1. Reform the education system

2. Find a responsible way to end the war in Iraq

3. Fix the economy by promoting the creative of alternate energy sources in America

4. Invest in scientific improvements

5. Use science to end global warming

Kelsey Johnson, ninth grade

1. Help students get into college

2. Legalize gay rights

3. Let students (14 and up) get jobs if they want them

4. Illegalize tobacco

5. Help stabilize Iraq and end the war

Travis Mayo, eighth grade

1. Save the kids

2. Everybody gets respect

3. Give me a job in the White House

4. Fair laws

5. Be respectful of the teachers at school