How to maintain state of views in fragment?

Letter to School District regarding Obama Speech?

• My School District like many in America sent home a stupid permission slip for our children to watch the Obama Speech. When I received it last week I was shocked and called the Superintendent. I have since sent the following letter to her as well as the entire school board. Anyone else voice your opinion with your district on the fact that such a big deal was raised about this? While writing a letter to each school board member, I felt I should also put in to writing to you how your "legally advised" decision to send letters home regarding the speech to students by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA appeared to the average person. It's one thing for there to be a controversy nation wide over something so silly, but it is very disappointing that our own school district would act in the same unpatriotic way as others in the nation have. In the elementary school hand book under the District Mission Statement it states "We will maintain an environment, which fosters responsibility, productive citizenship, and lifelong learning" following that is the State of Philosophy which reads in part as "The school should prepare the student to the best of his/her ability to take his/her place in society as a responsible, involved citizen of the world" The districts decision to send home letters making the Obama speech optional goes directly against your own mission statement. You have shown to all the students of the Public School District that instead of respecting the office of the President of the United States, regardless of whether there is a republican or democrat in office, you have shown them that if we don't personally like the person we should just take a stand and ignore what they have to say. You will never convince me that this decision wasn't a personal one driven by personal political views and it is a shame that the School Board allows that to happen. I tried to think back to my years in elementary school; a few things come to mind that my parents weren't given the option of whether I saw or not. I remember being in first grade at Mark Twain School and watching the Challenger blow up on live TV; in 6th grade I remember the TV being on all day every day showing coverage of the Gulf War; in 10th grade we watched all day coverage of the Murrah Building bombing during class. I know I made mention to you on the phone last week that you don't send anything home to parents regarding anything else you put in front of our children on TV and you made the comment that everything else is curriculum based, however; that is simply not true. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with my children seeing things on TV at school necessarily, but when you decide to make watching the president of the United States of America an option, but you stick them in front of the Disney Channel every morning without parental consent,I think you have crossed the line. I think you have now set a precedence that anytime you turn a TV on in front of the children and it is NOT curriculum based a note should be sent home giving parents the option of not having their child view it; would your legal council not agree? Another thing I found extremely odd is that each school is going to set aside and alternate setting for those kids whose parents did not want them to view the speech, but you weren't going to make sure that children whose parents absolutely wanted them to see it get to, such as rearranging lunch schedules if need be to view it. You cater to the side that agrees with you, but not the other; that doesn't seem fair at all does it? It is just really a sad day when we have such little respect for the office of the President of the United States of America that we have to send home a permission slip to see him on TV; it's not like Hitler was going to be making the address! So to close, I will expect to see a permission slip being sent home for all future programming showed to my child that is not directly curriculum based.

• Answer:

  I agree. We also received a permission slip from our elementary school to return if we didn't want our child to attend the speech. At first I had to laugh, and then I realized the true impact the vocal, far right minority is having on our country. There are legitimate complaints about Obama, as with any president, but the constant attacks on any and everything that Obama says or does is beginning to tear our country apart. When I saw Hannity attacking Obama on his choice of mustard for a sandwich (Dijon), I realized that the far right was going to attack, attack, attack and not deal with reality. To criticize a president for a message of staying in school and working hard even with faced with extreme difficulty is ludicrous. And now the far right says the real problems was having the students respond to the president with ideas on how to help the president. I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with that. Obama has been very good at attempting not to run roughshod over the minority Republican party, especially with the majority in Congress. But it is becoming more clear every day that the Republican party is controlled by far right nuts who will fight everything Obama suggests, even if it is for their benefit. And with 3 years left in office, don't be surprised if Obama finally gives up and does what the majority of American voters elect him to do....Change what the Republican party has done during the Bush years, pass health care, nominate supreme court justices that reflect liberal thinking, pull out of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq completely and work on the things we elected him to do....without help from Republicans. And while it may seem like a loud miniorty represents the American people, we have seen what the Democratic party can do when pushed in a corner. And we will do it again in future elections. The Republican party cannot survive using fear as it's key platform.