From KING5 TV:
Millions of people will be glued to the TV next week when President-elect Barack Obama takes his oath of office. But in Federal Way, students will need to get permission from their parents to watch the historical inauguration in school.
The concern is that the televised inauguration was not listed in syllabus handed out at the beginning of the term. The district considers the inauguration a full length documentary, unlike some newspaper or internet reference articles which do not require pre-approval.
“There is no big deal. The goal is to once again build partnerships, keep parents informed. Say ‘Hey. This is your child. Your education.’ We think it's a great opportunity. We're going to afford the kids that opportunity, but we want the parents to make that call,” said Dr. Joshua Joseph Garcia, Federal Way's Executive Director of Teaching for Learning.
Something I would be remiss if I did not point out from the story:
Federal Way is the same district that put a moratorium on Al Gore's Oscar winning film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth,” while the board investigated whether a screening adhered to district policies.
HMMM, do I detect a little RIGHT lean in the policy of this school district?? How sad and how small this makes the school district and the city itself look in doing this. I was reading the comments under the story and of course there were the usual hate comments, then the love comments, then the reasonable comments. Several, I didn't vote for him, but this is history, why not show it, I didn't vote for him but why not show the peaceful transfer of power that happens only in our country. Once you get past the rhetoric you find the truly profound.
Of course, there was also the one commenter who stated that they were very right leaning...which I found rather funny. Someone else wondered why they didn't have it in the schedule from the start. I wonder that too...did they forget it was an election year?? That we were going to have an inauguration?? Maybe they believed George when he said he wanted it to be a dictatorship. God Forbid.
One other thing to note from the article. Just so you don't think this is a state requirement. There was this:
Neither Seattle nor Tacoma schools require parental permission before students can watch the inauguration.
Federal Way is an area near Seattle, I guess you could call it a suburb. I wonder if there are other areas that are doing the same and we just haven't heard of them because they aren't as big nor as close to a major metro area.
How sad, that children again are the ones being singled out for punishment, they are the ones that will miss seeing history in the making, so adults can feel they have done their jobs. Why, do we adults feel we have to push our agenda's onto our children??
Think about it.....
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