Our local school district decided not to show the President to our children, I described my daughter's reaction here. Below is the letter she wrote to those involved.
The good news, they back-tracked today. They will show the President's speech in the district schools next week. Good to know you sometimes can fight back.
My daughter's letter:
I am a junior at Payson High School, in Nebo School district. That means I wasn't allowed to watch President Obama’s speech in school, and I have yet to hear one good reason for it. In fact, most of the reasons I have heard are completely nonsensical.
One reason was the fear that the speech would indoctrinate children. Well, the text was released beforehand and all it does is tell children to set goals and do well in school. The second is that no other President has done this before. In fact, two presidents have done this before. President Ronald Reagan and President George H. W. Bush. The third is that they don’t have the technology for it. My dad’s school had the technology for it in the eighties.
Whatever happened to the eight previous years when I was told repeatedly that you had to respect the president, simply because he was the president? Perhaps the radical right-wing would like to pretend that President Obama isn’t the president at all. I’m beginning to think we should change the name of the state of Utah to the state of Denial.
We live in the reddest county in the country, here in Utah. Yet enough parents and students complained that the school board reversed course. The headline says it all : Nebo does about-face, will let students hear Obama
A statement was read at a school board meeting Wednesday expressing regret students didn't get to hear the talk.
The statement said that the decision may have sent a message that the district doesn't respect the office of the president. The statement says that wasn't the intent.
It's not the same as seeing it live, but it sure feels good to see my daughter stand for what she thinks is right, and see something done about it.