Fair warning about Catholic school...I went through some of it, as did many of my brothers, and I was not the only one to notice that the RELIGION teachers had lessons that were aimed at de-bunking all the biblical miracles, starting with the plagues. We're talking about two different high schools, here, and about a ten-year time gap.
I applaud your decision to send your child there, but please keep an eye on what they learn. It was also in this same Catholic high school that I learned all my misinformation about the "benign" nature of communism. The history teacher actually taught us that "communism was a really good idea in theory, and only failed in practice because it cannot be forced on a population...everyone has to choose it for it to work." This view of communism was also taught in the local public school. It was only in adulthood that I had this view corrected, thank God, and I'm horrified to realize that I was taught so poorly, especially by a private school which is normally supposed to turn out people with a decent education.
As a Christian parent at Stevens Creek School, Cupertino, CA, the school accused of banning the Declaration of Independence, I am shocked with the misrepresentations of our community school that have put our children and school staff at risk. Since the incendiary headlines about the lawsuit Williams v Patricia Vidmar hit the media before Thanksgiving, the school has received over 3000 angry calls and emails from all over the country, many of which were extremely threatening, combative, profane, and decidedly un-christian in tone. Our shell-shocked school secretary (also a Christian) now sends all out-of-state calls to the recorder. Two sheriffs patrol the campus daily.
If you are interested in the truth about Stevens Creek School, please see www.StevensCreekParents.org. At Stevens Creek, my daughter was taught the usual California curriculum, with the complete Declaration of Independence and religious context of our forefathers. We say “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance. Our school was bristling with holiday decorations of every variety. The Good News Club and the Boy Scouts meet after school on campus.
This law suit is not about a school policy. It is the result of a disagreement between a principal and a specific teacher. If you look closely at the documents that were edited from Mr. Williams' lessons, you will notice that, while laudable for high schoolers, some are just too difficult for 10 year olds. Other edited documents were within an extremely religiously charged context. The Declaration itself is not among the edited lessons; Mr. Williams' lesson consisted only of the first, second, and last papargraphs of the document without context. Mr. Williams is notorious for running his class months behind the other 5 grade classes. I believe Mr. Williams spends too much time on religion at the expense of the three Rs. I also believe he should have completed the complaint process with the union before taking the case outside. In my view, he was being a bit of a jerk, but he was our jerk, and we were working with him.
The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian advocacy group, has already tried this case in the media. I believe that our school was the unlucky target of its pre-existing political agenda. Is it moral to endanger children while they debate their lofty issues. How can the message of our tiny community school compete with that of a slick group of attorneys with their $15 million budget?
We implore you to write responsibly and truthfully about our issue. By the time this lawsuit is resolved in favor of Mrs. Vidmar, it will no longer be a front-page story. The ADF, however, will have collected another truck load of donations from the misled.