No special interest group should have the ability to seize, jeopardize and compromise educational time to the tune of even 1 cent of taxpayer money.
While students have every right to express themselves, this is not an appropriate way to do so. (Whatever happened to t-shirts?) School administration needs to get a grip on any special interest groups that intend to rob kids of education and taxpayers of their money.
The CODE OF CONDUCT for the West Bend School District states that children must be removed from the classroom if they exhibit:
(d) Behavior which interferes with the ability of the teacher to teach effectively.
or
(e) Behavior which is inconsistent with effective teaching and learning in the classroom
Why has our school district allowed this group to sabotage our tax dollars, which are already under scrutiny? Our school board tells us we are short of money. We are taxed to the max and hear cries for more. Yet we allow special interest groups to enter the classroom where students are held captive and undermine teacher authority. Very disturbing.
Great article from FOXNews.com:
Gay Day of Silence a Waste of Tax Dollars, Critics Say
FOXNews.com
Thousands of public schools are planning to allow students affiliated with a gay and lesbian advocacy group to sponsor an anti-bullying "Day of Silence" on Friday, but family organizations say the demonstration is a disruptive waste of taxpayer dollars and are calling for families to pull their kids out of school.
......
Another article from the American Family Association:
School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day.
10 comments:
Do you have any actual information from the West Bend high school about whether this day caused any disruptions? You are jumping to conclusions without any data to support your position. Last year the high school administrators reported no discipline issues or teacher complaints about the day.
I would agree that if the demonstrations caused problems for teachers then something should have been done about it. However, if little or no discpline problems occured and the teachers were able to teach, then I see no problem with the demonstrations.
I actually do. From several teachers. Their hands are tied. If administration won't back them, what can they do? They don't even follow their own written policy.
What kind of disruptions did the demonstrations cause and how widespread were they? How many is several teachers? 5, 10 100 or more? I'm still skeptical of your claims but won't dismss them outright. I would like to believe that you really are concerned about the instructional disruptions and not about the district allowing students to express their views about something you are opposed to.
I support the Day of Silence and as long as it is a student initiated demonstration that doesn't disrupt instruction or interfere with other students ability to learn, the district needs to stay out of it. To deny students their free speech rights will take a high level of confirmation and not just hearsay from a few teachers.
We need to make free speech work for everyone, and not just those students who may be opposed to homosexuality and want to discuss it in their English papers or wear Adam and Steve t-shirts.
http://factsaboutyouth.com/wp-content/uploads/Superintendent-LetterC_3.311.pdf
Call Me Mom, I have read this letter when it first came out a few days ago. First, this has nothing to do with what actually happened at West Bend. It provides no evidence if West Bend East or West experienced instructional disruptions due to the Day of Silence.
Secondly, the American College of Pediatricians is a splinter group formed in 2002 by conservative pediatricians who refused to believe the actual science being done by the far more prestigous and long lived American Academy of Pediatrics. The claims in this letter are controversial to say the least and ignore the current research in the areas that it addresses. In short, this letter is junk science.
Allowing students to disrupt classes for this reason is an affirmation of the homosexual lifestyle. So, I do think the letter is relevent to the discussion.
Second of all, the scientific method nothing more or less that an attempt to look at the world and describe what is in it accurately.
Dispute is part of the scientific method. To declare somthing to be junk science because it does not agree with the conclusions, for whatever reason, of a "more prestigious" group is not rational.
(Their stated reason is concern for our children-those horrible people-who do they think they are advising schools to confine themselves to teaching and to err on the side of caution when it comes to influencing our children with regard to this choice.)
I have to ask, to what current research are you referring, because all of the research I have seen, when boiled down to it's base indicates that choosing to practice homosexuality has serious physical and psychological health risks.
To ignore those risks in order to avoid having to tell a group of people what they don't want to hear is not science either and it's not very nice to those folks who might make healthier decisions regarding their behavior if they had more accurate information.
If there is any research supporting the conclusions of this "splinter" group,(and there is) then we have an obligation to our children to do what is best for the children in our care rather than what may favor the political or PC agenda of one group or another.
First, neither you nor Ginny have definitively established that there were any disruptions of any kind at the high schools due to this event. In that regard, this letter is irrelevant.
Second, we can throw research at each other supporting our position (see Google Scholar and do a search on homosexuality for a ton of research that would support my pposition) all day and get nowehre. The bottom line is neither you or I know the first thing about how to evaluate research studies to determine if their methodology is valid and the statistical analysis they have chosen is appropriate for the type of study they are doing.
Published, peer-reviewed research is not the end all, be all of science. It is just the first step in the process. The research then needs to be presented at conferences and analyzed by other professionals in the field. The results of the study need to be able to be replicated multiple times for the research to be considered valid. There is a lot of peer-reviewed published research that fails in these next steps. That is why I choose to listen carefully to well established associations such as the AAP and their 60,000+ members when the association comes out with a statement refuting your position on the subject. I know that statement has been reviewed by the membership and their collective expertise. Releases from professional organizations are drafted by committees, then reviewed by the membership and redrafted again until finally they reach a conclusion that the majority of the membership can agree with.
It isn't a perfect system, but it is far better than opening up an ancient text thousands of years old and declaring anyhthing that disagrees with the ancient text to be false and heretical.
So, I question your assertion that my source, which I provded for you, is junk science and you question both of our ability to evaluate the results of a study or statistical analysis.
Then you proceed to outline why you think your information is better than mine. Interesting, but not logical. The truth trumps the majority opinion. This is a risky behavior.
Then, not having any other way to refute my assertion, that the risks involved in the behavior are clearly documented, statistically,(By which I mean, if you take a population and count the number of people in that population who suffer from a certain problem and notice that the incidence of that problem-be it physical or emotional- is associated most often within that population with those who are practicing a certain behavior, one may be justified in saying there is a correlation between the behavior and the problem with which it is associated. Especially in the case of physical problems whose causative agent can be shown to be that behavior.)
you decide to drag an: "ancient text thousands of years old " into the conversation. I haven't used any sort of ancient text to support my arguments, only facts as stated by this "splinter group" (who claim no religious or political affiliation-which is more than can be said for your larger group)as well as the majority of the statistical studies with which I am familiar.
The bottom line is that, under school rules, any disruption of the classroom is to be treated the same as any other, and this wasn't.
Should those students who smoke be allowed a day of refusal to engage with he learning process in the class? How about a day for those who declare themselves to be swingers? How about a day for people who suffer from pica or who practice pica as part of their heritage? All the students who support those with pica should pile their desks with dirt, chalk and the other odd things people who suffer from this behavior may find appetizing. The teachers should allow this, even though the piling and cleaning steals class time that other students may desperately need?
The students should not be encouraged/affirmed by the administration or staff of the school in any way to engage in unhealthy behaviors.
I won't deny that I am a Christian, but I don't need Biblical references to oppose an unhealthy behavioral choice. Just as I don't need the Bible to justify my opposition to theft, murder, adultery, smoking, inappropriate drug use or a host of other ills that beset our society.
I find it somewhat confusing that you are putting down this day of silence when there were students doing a similar day of silence in the beginning of the year, only it was about banning abortions instead. I also think it's odd that while you're so completely against this your church is apparently all for it, judging by the wonderful pro-day of silence messages that were in front of it (which included pictures of two boys holding hands, messages that are all about promoting the family value of LOVE, and bible verses) the past week and a half.
@ purplefreak15,
If you are addressing me, my church did no such thing. My church respects the Bible as the word of God and does not pick the bits they like to follow and discard those that would make them feel bad or have to confront people about their behavioral choices.
The Bible does espouse love towards one another. However, consider if it is truly loving to encourage people to engage in an unhealthy behavior.
Who loves you more:
The one who grabs you and sits on you to prevent you from running off a cliff to your death until you can be made to see sense; or the one who says, if that's what makes you feel good, go for it! and cheers you on?
I think it is the one who prevents you from running off that cliff. You, as well as a number of PC folks (yes, even chuches can make this sort of mistake), unfortunately, are sitting on the sidelines yelling "go for it!" as these folks run towards their own destruction.
Who loves them more? How many friends or relatives do we want to watch suffering and dying before they otherwise would because they have made this choice? I don't know about you, but I want those folks around to be my friends when I am old. And I am willing to say so.
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