President Obama's speech - sent to the school and the Superintendent of the school district

[helderheid]

Good evening,

In response to the notice
(http://www.canyonsdistrict.org/obama-speech.html) with a waiver giving
me an option to keep my children from watching President Obama's speech
to our nation's children about the importance of education which also
stated that elementary students would not view the speech, I am keeping
both my children at home Tuesday to ensure they are
able to view the speech in its entirety.

I must add, I find it highly confusing that this could possibly be "an
infringement upon a right of conscience or the exercise of religious
freedom....", but maybe you can explain that to me.

Thanks,

helderheid

[Windy]

1. Fantastic!!! Good for you!!! nt

[FarCenter]

2. Some worship at the altar of ignorance

[helderheid]

3. Thank you kindly. I am beyond pissed off. Can you imagine had McCain won and wanted to encourage our

kids stay in school and value education?

[CAG]

5. why, but that would have been just fine, since he's a god-fearin christian

(who occasionally goes to church) and he's not a muslin commie pinko socialistic fascist born in kenya! ;-)

[helderheid]

6. eegads, I've been so WRONG!

[DesertRat]

4. Excellent!!

:yourock:

[tridim]

7. Wish I had kids so I could get more personally involved.

This is really pissing me off the more I think about it.

[helderheid]

8. this is INSANE.

I am so sick of Utah right now.

[tabatha]

9. Would be cool if kids sent him drawings/cards after his speech.

[helderheid]

10. You know, I may do that.

[NotThisTime]

11. Thank god I'm in a liberal state, all the kids will see the President...

And for those in the state who aren't liberal, too damn bad, he's your President too...

They didn't even send home a notice, somebody is showing a brain around here....

[helderheid]

12. Where are you?

[NotThisTime]

16. Vermont formerly Mass.

[helderheid]

17. My entire family is in Oregon and Washington.

[malaise]

13. Freaking perfect

:yourock:

Every Democrat should do the same.

[titoresque]

14. What I read

................"Based on this description, Canyons School District believes this is a unique opportunity for students to hear from the President of the United States."

and then goes on to quote the Utah law which states that parents may opt out.

I think your school district is being fair about this and within the law. :shrug:

[helderheid]

15. You really believe this falls under the category of

"an infringement upon a right of conscience or the exercise of religious freedom...." ?

[helderheid]

18. Got a response!

Dear Mr. Doty,

I appreciate your response to my email. I am, however, still unclear about the reasoning behind the decision to send the waivers to parents. I don't understand how that law would apply here. President Obama is our duly-elected head of state. Were similar waivers previously sent to parents when President Bush Sr. and President Reagan addressed school children?

Again, I appreciate your reply.

helderheid

David Doty wrote:
> Dear Ms. helderheid,
>
> Thank you for your e-mail. Personally, I agree with your assessment and would have liked to air this program live for all of our students on Tuesday.
>
> The decision to not air it live in the elementary schools had nothing to do with its content, or with the person delivering the message.
>
> As the letter indicated, we are currently doing K-6 reading testing in all of our elementary schools, continuing through next week, and we did not want to interrupt this critical instructional activity. In addition, while some schools, like Sunrise, have fairly good technological infrastructures, several of our elementary schools do not currently have high-speed data lines and other tools needed to accommodate the live Web stream of this program. We have just barely put together critical pieces of the new district's information technology services, and we were concerned about the possibility of overloading this new system and causing a catastrophic crash of the system for which we could not get prepared in such a short time frame.
>
> Rather than have inconsistent messages going out to elementary school administrators, faculty, and parents, we made the decision not to air the program live in elementary schools but to allow its airing at a later time, on a school by school basis.
>
> With respect to the statement that waivers will be provided to those who request them on the basis of a right of conscience or religious freedom, it was quoted directly from state law, which requires that parents be given the opportunity to request a waiver from curricular activities on these grounds.
>
> As a Sunrise parent myself, I would be happy to work with you, other parents, and Principal Schofield to arrange an airing, and discussion, of the program, which will be posted on the White House web site, at the school.
>
> Thank you for writing to share your concerns.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dr. Dave Doty