On Friday evening, I wrote a diary entitled Calling all Hawaii Parents - President's Education Speech Blocked in his Birth State - the gist of which was that the Hawaii Superintendent of Education had blocked the president's address to students from being shown in Hawaii schools last Tuesday.
I'm sure everyone will be overjoyed to hear that we won one for democracy today. My son's school has reversed the decision and will be playing the speech next week during school spirit week. It is especially appropriate to play it during a school spirit event, don't you think?
More details below.
To summarize the original incident, my son’s school on Oahu initially disallowed the speech. His teacher recorded it, was ready to play it, and had lessons planned around it, when an announcement was made on the loudspeaker that the teachers were not to show it due to a last minute email from the superintendent. The mainland protests were the reason given.
I was shocked by the lack of outrage I encountered everywhere I complained, but I was finally able to get one newspaper to look into it. When they called the DOE and the school on Friday, everybody started scrambling. The DOE claimed that the principal misunderstood the email from the superintendent, because of course they would, but at least no one denied that the email existed or that the incident occurred.
Through my outreach efforts to other parents over the weekend, I found out that at least one school in our town did show it on the day. I was able to verify that and it helped. Parents who didn't want their kids to see it were allowed to opt out, and they will do the same thing at our school. I have no idea how many other schools did or didn't play it, I only know that our principal told us the superintendent wasn't allowing it due to the protests, and that the decision came down in an email blast to all of the principals. No one wants to take responsibility at this point, and I guess that isn't important as long as the outcome was as it should be.
One misunderstanding that I would like to clear up, is that the email that started this whole thing did not come from Superintendent of Education, Patricia Hamamoto, as I reported in the original diary. It came from the complex area superintendent, whose name I won't mention because she isn't a public figure like her boss. It was a miscommunication between me, the teacher and the principal, when both the teacher and I assumed the principal meant Ms. Hamamoto when she only used the word ‘superintendent.’ That doesn't let Pat Hamamoto off the hook, however, because I'm sure nothing happens in her department that she doesn't know about.
I know that there are parents on the island of Kauai who are still fighting to have the speech shown in some schools there, so this is not over yet. But every time another school reverses the decision, it lends strength to the movement, and puts pressure on those who continue to resist doing the right thing. If there is anyone on Kauai (or anywhere else in the islands) who would like to hook up with other parents who are trying to get this done, please contact me at the email address on my user page, and I can put you in touch.
A heartfelt mahalo goes out to those who commented on my original diary about this, for giving me the support and encouragement I needed to stick with it!