Crossposted at
ePluribus Media and
North Coast BLues
UPDATE I attended a PTA meeting today, and was informed by the principal that...
* the military had called the day before,
* that they volunteered to read to the kids,
* they talked about their jobs only after the children had asked and
* that it was just like any other person talking about their careers.
See my responses to these statements below
Evidently the provisions of No Child Left Behind that allow military recruiters to have access to High School seniors isn't enough for recruiters in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Here, the recruiters are reduced to visiting suburban Elementary Schools, encouraging kids to learn more about the military and asking their parents to take them to the local Air Show.
more on the flip
And it wasn't just one school. This was a coordinated effort district-wide involving at least five schools, and perhaps many more. There was no advance warning, no contact with either parents or the Board of Education as far as I can tell. They just called, and walked in later that afternoon.
So I get a letter from my Brother-in-law last night:
On Friday Sep. 1st my wife took the kids to school and on that day a guest came to the school and read children's stories to my child's class. This is not an uncommon thing to have happened. Both my wife and I have volunteered at the school and it is something many parents do. In fact this would not have bothered me except for the fact that the person (unbeknownst to me) was a military recruiter in full uniform. This person was not even a parent of a child in the school.
My daughter came home and told me how this military recruiter (in full uniform) came in to read stories to her class. She told me about how he didn't just read to them but spoke to them about his time serving in the military and encouraged them to attend the Cleveland Air Show and watch the display of war planes.
Please understand that I don't just find this distasteful. It is incredibly hypocritical that the "Coventry Peace School" would allow this to happen. Especially considering the schools' great strides in non-violent conflict resolution, peer mediation, academic performance and other areas too numerous to list.
It is immoral that the school system would allow people that kill for a living to come and market death to children. Whether you see them as defending this country or not, no person can dispute the fact that people in the military are trained to kill and that killing is their primary job even if it is "in defense." Practicing to kill every day (even at/during the air show) is what they do. There is no place for this in a nine-year-old's classroom.
I am quite sure Coventry Elementary School in Cleveland Heights was not the only one visited by military recruiters that day. I understand the power of direct marketing to a young, captive audience and what happened that day was nothing less. By sending military recruiters in full uniform, acting as a walking billboard to read to kids you are directly marketing to a young, captive audience. Any marketing person will tell you that.
It should be criminal that recruiters in the military are stooping as low as pedophiles. Like kiddy porn junkies, preying upon young children, the schoolyard stalkers. First the colleges, then the high schools, now they are after grade school kids too. The "Coventry Peace School" along with the Board of Education and I'm sure other districts are allowing it to happen. Parents should NOT!
As suggested when I called the school about this, I am finding out about organizations that both have course material and have been trying to do work with schools, offering to volunteer in much the same manner as was done on Friday. What I am finding out is almost all the groups that have tried have been denied for one reason or another. It is a shame these groups don't enjoy the same access to our children as people that are voluntarily trained to kill.
I am asking people that are concerned about what values our schools are projecting upon our children to please contact me so we may discuss what to do about this issue. Obviously enough has not been done.
Concerned, I started calling other schools in the district this morning. According to Barbara Bacon, school counselor at Roxboro Elementary, the Navy was in attendance that afternoon to read to the children. I'm currently waiting for more details from her. At least three additional elementary schools were also contacted -- one had another program that afternoon and declined the navy's offer, and another arranged for them to be there but the servicemen never showed up.
UPDATE CONTINUED
My response was that if they were truly volunteers they would not have been in dress uniforms. They were being paid, and were there for a reason. I said the children would have had far less interest in their "career" if they hadn't been wearing their uniforms, and that the kids I had spoken to (all three of them) had no recollection of what the story was, only thats the men were "cool," that their badges and medals were shiny and that they were very exciting and lived exciting lives. I asked if it was career day last Friday? they said, no. I asked if they had let parents know in advance that their children were doing to be exposed to members of the military? They said, no, it was just set up in one day. The Principal said she had consulted with the board to be sure it was okay, but my source at the Board of Education said they had no idea it was happening.The military were with those children for nearly an hour, but only read for an average of 10 minutes. As far as I can tell there were at least three or four officers at each school.
Also, when any other person talks about their job, usually they try to give an accurate, if somewhat sanitized, description of their work. I sincerely doubt that the military personnel at these schools talked about job benefits that included being separated from their families for years at a time, about losing hands and feet and other body parts in IUD explosions, about the PTSD that is being diagnosed in a record number of freshly-returned soldiers (see Ilona's fantastic set of diaries on this topic) and the lack of support that they face when they come home thanks to the current Congress' penchant for cutting aid to Veterans while claiming to support them.