Posted on 06/17/2004 7:21:12 AM PDT by esryle
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- When Covington schools Superintendent Jack Moreland saw an advertisement for a Chippendales show, he thought it would be a good morale booster for his female employees. So he shelled out $420 to send 20 female staff members to a Chippendales show to see buff men strip off most of their clothing.
It worked, but it also raised the ire of at least one person, who wrote an anonymous letter to the state Office of Education Accountability accusing Moreland of using school-district funds to pay for the strip show.
Moreland said he spent $420 of his own money for the show - and faxed his personal credit-card receipt to investigators.
"I did it in fun, and they went in fun, and I don't think there was any harm done," he said.
Bryan Jones, a lawyer for the Office of Education Accountability, said he couldn't confirm or deny whether his office looked into a complaint.
The women who attended the show said they enjoyed it.
"We just laughed and laughed and laughed," said Jena Meehan, the superintendent's secretary. "It was a spectacle, to be sure, and to have all of us there was even funnier."
Chippendales is a high-class male revue that became popular in the 1980s. Well-muscled young men wearing bow-ties and bare chests strip to scanty undies for female audiences.
Moreland is the former president of the Council for Better Education, the superintendents group that brought the historic lawsuit that resulted in the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and its revolutionary reform of Kentucky's public schools.
What, exactly, are you afraid these women are going to do in their classroom?
"She teaches at high school level and has five 16 year old girls in one class who are pregnant- one of them with her second child. I doubt that any of them would be traumatized to learn that their teacher went to a male strip club"
Don't you think that's the beginning of the problem?
who decides what's appropriate? it's appropriate for those who choose to go. and like I said before, the context in Chippendale's REALLY isn't that sexual. It's like mock sexual, which really just leads to women laughing and having fun.
Eve did start it, but Adam followed.
hey, what fun is the Garden of Eden without Eve?? :)
Well there is nothing wrong with having high standards even if you don't always obtain them yourself. I think there are a lot of people who are better qualified than these women to teach kids, and I do want the best, most morally upright teachers that are available.
other than this one event, how much do you know about their qualifications to teach? Do you know their students grades, test scores, abilities, attitudes, morale, ambition, etc? No? Then how can you begin to speak about how qualified they are? Schools need MORE good teachers - if these are otherwise good teachers, getting rid of them doesn't do children a service, it hurts them. A stupid show doesn't hurt them, but removing teachers from schools sure does.
No, ONE person complained, and there are a couple here who think it is bad. MOST of the people involved and MOST people posting here think it is fine.
Until the weenie complained, I'd wager the kids had no idea that the teachers went. If young enough, most kids wouldn't know what it is (Chippendales has passed it's hey-day IMO).
I smoke. Am I fired?
from the discussion here that clearly isn't true - not even most people on a conservative discussion board think it is immoral. And just because it was reported doesn't mean everyone is outraged. All it takes is a couple loud people to make nothing seem like a big deal. If you have a problem with it and I don't, who gets to make the rules?
Why should we employee you, if you aren't willing to set a good example for our kids?
you really do need to lighten up - these teachers didn't set ANY example for the kids, they did something on their own time. Are your kids really so impressionable that every action their teacher performs shapes their world? Shouldn't they be looking to YOU for that kind of moral guidance?
"Women make both the manners and the morals of a people. Neither rises higher than the gauge which women set in a community.... Where a woman has bad manners, it always has in it an element of vulgarity which is more painful than it could be in a man. The result will be a society hopelessly vulgarized...with no end but to sink in an ever deeper abyss of vulgarity." -- Thomas Nelson Page, 1911
OH man...Hustler and smoking...fired isn't good enough. you'll have to be beaten. then fired. then beaten some more. you know - for the children!
.</sarcasm off>
Apparently, you weren't following the arguments very well. I wasn't comparing attending a strip bar w/having sex w/students. I was responding to someone putting forth a new absolute--"whatever is legal is moral." My argument was in response to that philosophy, not the original news article.
As a teacher, you need to be aware of the influence you have on the kids entrusted to your care. And that influence is not limited to what you do on the clock. Kids will learn and be influenced by what you do off the clock. That's the nature of the profession you have chosen.
The likelihood that anyone knows you entered and purchased something from a Hustler store is probably low, but I would be discreet about it, because while you may be purchasing something that is entirely appropriate within the context of marriage for you and your husband to be enjoying (for example, lingerie), the possibility exists that someone you know is going to see you.
If they do there is a strong possibility that they will gossip (which the bible condemns strongly even equating it to murder) about you. And if they do gossip, it's likely that they are going to associate the Hustler store with Porn.
Thus you have to be prepared for the possibility that your students are going be whispering on the playground that Ms. Dianna likes Porn and goes to Porn shops.
So my advice is, for the sake of your students and your career, if you are going to teach in Cincinnati, don't go to the Hustler store there. Either go somewhere else, or by the items you want from an establishment that doesn't have the same negative association.
And if the Superintendent of Schools invites you and many of your coworkers to go to the Hustler store or to see Chippendales. Polite thank him for the offer and decline and don't go.
Good quote. There is a lot of truth in that.
::::sigh:::: and I haven't been in a church for a number of years.
I'd really like to know what the upset posters think I will do differently in a classroom than someone who they categorize as "moral" does.
Hey, people do what they want. They act. They act publicly. They endure the fall-out & consequences (if any). Sometimes, it's ho-hum who cares? Sometimes, it's legal consequences. Sometimes, it's social consequences (a type of social sanctioning or social distancing).
Taxpayers pay the salaries of government employees like educators. Educators are role models and character-influencers of children and are generally accountable to taxpayers. Not everything they do that's morally and publicly inappropriate is going to be a "fire-able" offense. And I can think of a lot of perfectly legal things that an educator could do on their own time which would hurt his or her ability to effectively communicate to children and would at least prompt a discussion w/his or her supervisor.
And do you pretend to think that's any different w/most of us? I think we could all think of perfectly legal behavior (e.g. appearing as a superjerk or exhibitionist on some reality show) which would indeed effect our on-the-job relationships in some way--even if they didn't effect our on-the-job performances.
That's the real world! Not some compartmentalized wall of split personalities (Joe Public vs. Joe Private) & ne'er the twain shall meet!
One person complained. To whom? How did the press find out? Why did the press think it was newsworthy? Why does this thread even attract attention if it's so common? I think there is a lot more oppostion to this than you are willing to admit.
"I smoke. Am I fired?"
No as vices go, there are far worse. Smoking is not what I would call immoral, even though it is an unhealthy habit. And you will be setting a bad example for the kids.
Do you want kids to follow your example and take up smoking?
"I think Most people do agree this was immoral behavior. Otherwise it wouldn't be an issue would it?"
Not really. It's not an issue. You and a few others are the only ones making a big deal out of it.
Even you made one important disqualifier at the end: And so long as it's kept away from the children...
The fact that these female educators frequent strip shows is no longer a fact "kept away from the children" now is it?
If my child had been in one of these classrooms, I would have pulled her out. If we learned nothing else during the Clinton years, it was that what you do in private has a great deal of bearing on what you do in public. If you are immoral in private (and yes, I believe that what they did was immoral), then I can't expect them to be a proper role model in class. And choose the things to teach that children need to learn. If they can compartmentalize their life like that, then they are a bit too psychopathic to be teaching my children. You may be happy with your children in a classroom like that, but I wouldn't be! And they wouldn't stay there for long!
Wait a minute. It seems that the problem isn't what I actually do, but what people MIGHT say or think. Going to Chippendales is suddenly equivalent to having dinner with a male friend because some people might assume that I am having an affair and say so.
Surely children thinking that I am having an affair is just as damaging to them (I'm not sure they'd care a lot or understand much, frankly)as if I were actually having an affair.
Teachers are to be under the thumb of the small minded gossips? THAT is certainly MORAL.
YOu didn't answer the question - why do YOU get to say what people do on their own time? Hey, if all the parents from the school gather together to oust these teachers, then, well, the people have spoken. But so far you seem to be the only one saying they have to go, despite a complete lack of evidence that this will effect their students in the slightest other than your personal moral outrage, mirrored only in a small number of other posters here. So, again, why do YOU get to say what people do on their own time? Answer - you personally don't. People, as a group, do. If the people whose children attend this school are offended, the teachers will face some consequences, be they professional or otherwise. BUt just because you are offended doesn't mean the teachers have done anything for which they should be punished in any way
Neither does protecting the freedom of adults go hand in hand with never allowing social sanctions or other consequences from befalling those adults who fail to protect children via their immoral shotgun behavior. What? You want a safety net for all adults from any negative social consequence for any and all legal, public acts they may engage in?
If so, whose best interest do you have in mind? Protecting the adult desires enacted in the public square, or protecting children?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.