TO?THE?EDITOR:
I am responding to Fr. Kiley’s article regarding the literature being distributed to junior high school students in Pawtucket.
Our daughter, living in Montana, has been fighting, during the beginning of the 2010/2011 school year, against decisions made by the Helena School Board of Trustees.
The first issue arose in September 2010 when a new sex education program, from K through high school, was introduced. Many families throughout the state were upset because of the descriptive language starting at the kindergarten level.
They thought it was inappropriate. After a long hearing before the trustees, they did tone down some of the explicit language.
Besides the language, the parents were against telling the first graders to understand “humans can love people of the same gender.” Montana does not allow gay marriage at this time.
In November 2010, our granddaughter came home with a book assigned to her 10th grade English class and showed it to her mother. She felt uncomfortable reading the book aloud in class.
The book was, “The Diary of a Part-Time Indian Boy” by Sherman Alexis. This book is highly recommended by librarians.
After reading the book, our daughter made an appointment with the English teacher about the book.
To our daughter, there was obscene, vulgar and pornographic material in the book and it shouldn’t be in the school curriculum.
The teacher told her it was an easy book for her students to read. Feeling the book was inappropriate, she met with the librarian, who had recommended the book, and with the principal. They both agreed with the teacher. Our daughter even recommended another book, “A Broken Flute.”
She filed a complaint with the school board, in accordance with school policy.
A hearing was called before them and she testified against the book, calling it “an assault on our family values system.” The hearing was held at 4 p.m., when many parents were working. The testimony for the book was mostly by teachers. This meeting was covered by the news media.
She lost the appeal and the book stayed. Our granddaughter was allowed to opt-out of reading it and was assigned another book, which she went to the library to read when her English class was in session. We feel this was a very heroic move on her part.
This letter is just to sight another example of the public schools putting forth secular learning and also putting in the class room inappropriate material for the students.
Virginia Mc Givney
North Providence
