liberals love nothing more than hating Christians
The lawsuit that Stephen Williams brought against the Cupertino Union School District was filed in Oakland, but the firestorm surrounding it was centered squarely over the Stevens Creek Elementary School community. While the district has finally broken its silence on the matter by filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, parents are going a step further. They're fighting back in the same arena that produced the firestorm - the media.Incensed by widely reported claims that Stevens Creek has banned the Declaration of Independence, an organization called We the Parents is trying to restore Stevens Creek's reputation. At a forum held on Jan. 24, parents - as well as several Stevens Creek teachers - discussed the school's history curriculum for community members and the news media.
In addition, We the Parents has sent an open letter to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is providing Williams' legal representation and published the case's initial press release. The letter requests that the fund retract its misleading statements and apologize for their effects - the school received 3,000 irate phone calls and messages and has increased security patrols to ensure students' safety.
"Our goal is merely to present our side of the story," said Maria Segal, one of the forum's organizers. "We're concerned with the depiction of our school. Many parents would have been happy not to say anything if it weren't for ADF."
About 60 people attended the forum at Quinlan Community Center on the evening of Jan. 24. After an introduction by Nathalie Schuler Ferro, one of the group's founders, the forum kicked off with a presentation of the group's website, located at www.stevenscreekparents.org. The site features photos of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution hanging in Stevens Creek's Guided Learning Center. It has received up to 17,000 hits a day.
Fifth-grade teachers Sara Beetem and Amy Vedunas then discussed their social studies curriculum - Vedunas held up a copy of A New Nation, the history textbook used by all of the grade schools in Cupertino Union. The book is based on California state standards. Beetem also gave a presentation on Stevens Creek's Living History Days, which give the school's 118 fifth-graders the chance to impersonate explorers or Revolutionary War participants for a day. The Revolutionary War exercise involves an overnight stay in tents on the school's back lawn.
"I learned a ton of stuff about the Revolutionary War that I did not know before," said John Bartas, editor of the group's website, who has volunteered for Living History Days. "I have no recollection of doing anything like this when I was in school."
Ferro said that this was the point - to give the parent's point of view on the school's offerings. That opinion was an overwhelmingly positive one, told to an audience that included many Stevens Creek parents, but also several older members of the community. "There are other members of the community who are older and don't have children in the district any more, but they have consistently gone to board meetings. But the board can't talk about the lawsuit," Ferro said. "We wanted to assuage their fears."
She added that the response to the forum was surprising. We the Parents couldn't advertise the forum on school grounds, but managed to attract more people than Ferro expected. The invitation was also extended to members of the local media, but not to outlets like the Fox News Channel, which brought conservative talk show Hannity & Colmes to the Flint Center on Dec. 8.
However, national media attention on the lawsuit is still alive and kicking. Ferro said she recently escorted New Yorker writer Peter Boyer around Cupertino and he expressed surprise at seeing a number of churches in what he had heard was a "heathen" town. On Jan. 12, Katie Couric interviewed former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who made a reference to a California high school where a teacher was prohibited from handing out the Declaration of Independence.
The perpetuation of the claim that the Declaration of Independence has been outlawed prompted We the Parents to send an open letter to Alliance Defense Fund, asking it to retract the original press release, which can still be found on the fund's website through an Internet search. The letter also asked the fund to issue a public apology. "While you may not have directly contacted the many people who felt compelled to vent their hostility toward our principal and school, we believe your organization is nonetheless responsible," the letter said.
"We want to make the point that they lied," Ferro added. "Any one of those 3,000 people [who sent messages to the school] could have come in with an AK-47. We wanted to place the responsibility of those 3,000 threats on their shoulders."
In response, ADF issued a statement blaming the media for misrepresenting its initial press release and condemning those who threatened the school.
"... such crude behavior by any person does nothing to further reasoned discussion of the fundamental right at issue," the statement said.
Meanwhile, the district filed a motion on Jan. 31 to dismiss the lawsuit. The district said in the motion that there's no factual evidence to back Williams' claim that his constitutional rights were violated. The motion also countered Williams' argument that he and his lesson plans were singled out for review by Principal Patricia Vidmar because of his religion. The motion stated that parental complaints prompted th actions.
Eeeenteresting.....
Give me names of those in the media whom you accuse of lying- and what has happened to cause this uproar over the Declaration of Independence.
Are you calling Sean Hannity and the teacher liars then?
And give me details of how your "little Christan" community and school district has been hurt by the publicity of this.
Why was the teacher being disciplined and lastly do you want us to feel sorry for you?
NO WAY- you are in the wrong place for that.
California again.
This is what you think of those on the right? That they're violent school shooters?
Cupertino Mom: Member since 2005-01-24
CM? Hellooooo......
You still there??
This is from your homepage and would seem to indicate that you are a product of the public schools. In intelligent discourse "couner" is spelled "counter", "intitled" is spelled "entitled", and "retration" is spelled "retraction."
You and your parents group are simpletons.
:rolleyes:
"Banning the Declaration of Independence"
Part of the problem, they didn't ban it.
They keep using all sorts of strawman arguements to bolster their "points" and insist that those of us who are critical owe them some sort of "apology" and "truthtelling" that (of course) only serves their own pedantic interests.
Lady, you obviously are part of that rabble, and considering that your group has neglected to provide anything other than your own muddled bleating to any website, columnist, talk show host or media source in order to justiy or prove your half-truths, suppositions and accusations.
I'm going to say something that the others have been far too polite to say: Shut the F--- up!
Your principal has been shown to have a bias against a Christian teacher in that school, and has been shown to prevent him from using historical documents in the classroom.
There is a pending court case regarding this; and no amount of bitching and whining on your part will change that fact.
Go deal with your local problem with your local school principal and her personal issues with that other teacher and quit trying to use the court of public opinion -- especially in a politically biased fashion -- to fight your local battle for you.
And finally, please stop trying to troll for your bitch-fest site here. We're not interested.
Spent a good bit of time in Cupertino in the early 90's, you can keep it.
This article is so poorly written it should have caused a firestorm by itself.
