Posted on 02/18/2005 10:51:50 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Leave it to a California high school, a charter member of a state now ranked 48th out of 50 states in academic proficiency, to demonstrate exactly why so many parents are pulling their kids out of government educational institutions.
Silverado High School, located in the city of Victorville in the California high-desert region, has had its share of student-body challenges, most recently an outbreak of racially motivated fisticuffs between black and Latino students during an assembly on February 4.
"It was divided along racial lines," said Superintendent Greg Lundeen, of the Victor Valley Union High School District. "A lot of the issues are from students that are new to the area and new to the system."
This wasn't just a simple fight. The incident involved a reported 100 students. A similar fracas, involving 75 students, erupted last October, resulting in the suspension of 32, and the cancellation of assemblies for the remainder of the school year.
But this account isn't about California's ethnic tensions, nor about out-of-control immigration impacting school demographics, it's about the pro-gay indoctrination of impressionable children, and apparent disdain government officials have for the rights of parents and for California voters.
On Friday, February 11 (Valentine's Day weekend), 18 gay students were united, married in "mock gay marriages," with the permission of Silverado Principal Susan Levine. The local district attorney also gave the green light to Gay-Straight Alliance event.
On Saturday, February 12, the LA Times reported in "Gay 'Weddings' at School Protested," that: "Mock gay marriages of 18 students at Silverado High School on Friday drew dozens of angry community and parent protesters to a campus already plagued by controversy.
"The lunchtime 'wedding' ceremonies of six female couples and three male couples in the school's outdoor central gathering area were part of a demonstration by members of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance in support of same-sex marriage and to mark National Freedom to Marry Day today. The day was declared by a gay and non-gay partnership advocating same-sex marriage."
The Times made sure to include in the story subhead the important qualifier: "No violence is reported at the Victorville campus."
Where Do Wishes of Parents Fit In?
In the California educational system, where tolerance, safe schools, and diversity are code words for progressive indoctrination, parents need to be engaged and informed on where government officials are taking their children.
Back in August 2002, I described what former Governor Gray Davis and then California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin were doing with school curricula and implementation of "safe schools" laws passed by the far-Left legislature in "Stealth Agenda Trumps Academic Success in Schools,"
The issues and questions were as important then, as they are urgent now.
Do you, the parent, have a moral right, based upon your beliefs, to decide when, where and how sexual orientation will be described to your children?
Do you, the low-income parent with children in harm's way, have a right to get your child into a real school where your kid can learn English and have a better life?
Should "safe schools" be measured by the effectiveness of preventing guns, drugs or teen pregnancy from ruining young lives? Or should school safety be determined by reducing mental trauma caused to the still unknown numbers of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual students?
Are we in fact being led by agenda-driven demagogues who exploit your children to increase their power?
The Laws Impacting Your Children Now
Assembly Bill 1785: Hate Crimes. Requires all schoolchildren to be taught acceptance of homosexual behavior beginning in the elementary grades. Senate Bill 225: Hate Crimes and Schools. Requires junior and senior high schools to adopt "non-discrimination" policies including "sexual orientation" (that's gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexuals and transgender students) or be prevented from participating in sporting events. Assembly Bill 537: The California Student Safety and Violence Protection Act. Adds actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity to state nondiscrimination policy. In the spirit of "fostering appreciation" for diversity, superintendent Eastin took it upon herself to form an unauthorized 36-member advisory task force to translate AB 537 into state Education Codes. Here are several of the recommendations:
Survey children to probe their attitudes about homosexuality. Incorporate pro-homosexual and pro-transgender language into "all" curricula, including science, history, language arts and even math. Prominently display sexual orientation and gender identity anti-discrimination posters on campuses. Fund and place on each campus a person knowledgeable about sexual orientation and gender identity issues to ensure AB 537 compliance (i.e., thought police). Now, three years later, things have gotten more out of control, especially in divided schools like Silverado.
According to a Victorville Daily Press report the day before the February 11 event "Mock gay weddings at Silverado," February 10:
Roxana O'Harra, the mother of three Silverado students, is organizing a protest against the simulated weddings.
O'Harra's children plan to join others who disagree with same-sex marriage to protest the ceremonies. Dissenting students plan to wear red T-shirts — the color of courage, they say — and stand with their backs to the ceremony with signs reading "I don't" — meant to oppose the "I dos" that are the traditional vows of a wedding ceremony, O'Harra said.
"The fact that the Gay-Straight Alliance Club is conducting a mock gay wedding of students on campus — an event that factually opposes the initiative passed into law by the California voters — is outrageous and demoralizing to the institution of marriage," O'Harra said.
Academics Subordinated to Chaos
After reading about the astonishing turn of events at this school, I began to wonder whether I was reading about a prison, a site for sensitivity training, or a Gay-Straight assembly, but in no sense did the academic purpose of education ever enter the picture.
After the most recent fights at Silverado earlier this month, the students were hurriedly commandeered to the buildings housing their sixth period classes. Some teachers videotaped the fighting in order to identify pugilists, then later set aside their cameras and participated in the lockdown mode. Eventually buses were assembled to usher the students to their homes.
I truly feel for the parents, caught up in the daily battle of work and paying bills while striving to prepare a solid future for their kids. There are so many social ills impacting the delivery of a quality education that few in government have the courage to identify core problems, focus on priorities we all used to take for granted, and defend the values that were once the bedrock of a now silenced educational ethos: citizenship and the responsibility that goes with it.
In the meantime, increasingly irrelevant legislators in Sacramento disdain reality, and stay quiet about an imploding educational crisis. Our governor tiptoes around the deeper demographic, language, and cultural issues and instead focuses his rhetoric on merit pay for teachers.
At least there was one irrefutable comment within the fray. Silverado Principal Susan Levine said that she could not guarantee the safety of the participants in the mock weddings. Nonetheless, the "nuptials" were conducted with only one incident; an egg was hurled during vows.
Is this what things have really come to in California schools?
Poster Number 17 meet Poster number 20, He supports the heroin shoot up day.
"O'Harra's children plan to join others who disagree with same-sex marriage to protest the ceremonies. Dissenting students plan to wear red T-shirts — the color of courage, they say — and stand with their backs to the ceremony with signs reading "I don't" — meant to oppose the "I dos" that are the traditional vows of a wedding ceremony, O'Harra said."
...but, but, but that's intolerant [*spit*]
"How about a student group advocating ***snip*** pedophilia?"
I just read the Posts man ,Did you or did you not say you would support the students attempts to change the drug laws.
If they decided to have a Heroin shoot up day, using fake heroin of course, Since they didnt really get married,would you or would you not support it?
It was during lunch.
Or a fundamentalist Christian school for that matter?
I can't really tell, but it looks like you're kind of asking me a few different questions:
Would I support students shooting up heroin at school to draw attention to and protest current drug laws? No.
Would I support students doing some sort of mock heroin shoot-up to to draw attention to and protest current drug laws? I would support their right to do so, but I would not support their goals. Just to be clear, I wouldn't give the students money or participate in their stunt, but I would oppose people who tried to stop them.
See how easy that was? Now we all know how you feel.
The Victor Valley is one of the most beautiful desert communities you'll ever find. I hope they can get it together. What a shame... :O(
OK. And the (free) speech in response to the students' free speech, critical or otherwise, shall be equally acceptable and welcomed.
Remember the child speaker at the Democrat convention? And the Democrat response when what she said was critiqued? Talk about shamelessly using children. Anybody steering the group of students performing the mock gay marriage?
I'll wager you don't have a young son.
You are right, and I knew it, but I figured it was like horseshoes, close enough. I should have known better on FR! Ha Ha
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