This is vitally important. I will be expecting a reply from each addressee on this email. Regarding President Obama’s address to the nation’s students…
I trust you will continue with your PLANNED lessons and activities on Tuesday, September 8th. I have an expectation that each and every day’s lesson plans are part of the overall curriculum required to complete the school year. Otherwise the school year would be shortened. I also trust my children’s lunch period will not be disrupted by airing the speech in the cafeteria.
The planned address by President Obama would disrupt this schedule, interfering with the education of my children. I have examined the menu of activities published by the U.S. Department of education and find it totally inappropriate to compel students to listen to the speech and participate in these activities. The President does not have the academic credentials to teach any Elementary or High School lesson. In fact, his academic performance is a mystery since he has never released his grades from High School or College. He has never released his graded writings or thesis papers that led to the conference of his degrees. He is unqualified to speak to the subject of setting academic goals since he has never stated how he set academic goals and plans, and how he achieved them (and how his grades reflected those goals).
It is also no small thing that President Obama has admitted to using illegal drugs including marijuana in his youth. This well known fact can provide these impressionable teens the rationale that they too could engage in these destructive activities and still achieve their academic goals.
If you insist on using the taxpayer funded facility to require students to listen to a partisan political speech and directed activities (the “Menu of Classroom Activities” is political), then you have quite a dilemma on your hands. Parents like me, will not consent to our children participating in this activity because of the concerns stated above. You must set up a separate facility within the school for these children and provide appropriate academic activities to keep them engaged (I am also requesting you publically release the lesson plan for these activities). The other side of this coin is that these children will be separated from their peers and some division will naturally occur where there wasn’t any before. Some of the activities specify that the children create posters and such that will be posted in the classroom or hallways, since my children will not participate in that activity they will be unduly subject to political peer pressure.
If you insist that all students at school that day must participate in the President’s lecture and activities, it will be necessary to keep my children home. Therein lies another dilemma for you. My children will not be sick and therefore it could be a classified as an unexcused absence. Will such an absence be held against my child in ANY way? That is a question that must be answered.
I believe a fine alternative for parents who wish to participate in this event is for them to keep THEIR children at home and watch the speech and do the specified activities with their child. That way no parent will be denied the academic exercises that they choose for their child. I choose the academic exercises in each subject area that are part of the curricula defined for this academic year.
As I mentioned; I expect (as a tax paying parent entrusting the education and care of my children to this school district) that each addressee will respond to this email. I have seen the talking points that have been released by the National Education Association, and hope you will not resort to such “canned” statements.
I will release this as an open letter to the media, but I will not release the names of the addressees. I ask that you extend the same courtesy to my family by not releasing my name or the names of my children. I would consider such a release a violation of ethics and privacy.
Submitted with all due respect and appreciation for the fine work that the ________ County School system provides for our children and community…
Thanks for your attention and actions in resolution of the matter.
Sincerely,
that’s a good letter.
Only reason I bring it up is it would give the principal an excuse to ignore your letter.
It's a fine, hard-hitting letter and should make the principal shake in his boots.