School district addresses Obama speech ‘firestorm’

By Kyle B. Hansen

Friday, Sept. 4, 2009 | 5:31 p.m.

Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes said Friday the district has received a “firestorm of calls” from parents about next Tuesday’s planned speech from President Barack Obama targeted at students.

Schools can decide whether to show the speech to students, but parents who don’t want their children to see the president’s speech can ask that their children be given an alternative activity, Ruffles said during a news conference today to address concerns of parents.

The district has instructed principals to determine how the speech will be used at each school, but students generally won’t see the speech unless it’s tied to related course work, such as in political or history classes. Obama has said he will use the speech to encourage students to work hard and stay in school.

Some parents are concerned the speech will advance a political agenda, but others want their children to hear from the president.

“I think there may have been some mixed messages that schools were going to mandate students watch this when that’s not the case at all,” Ruffles said. “It’s not going to be mandated and we neither endorse nor prohibit (it).

“The district’s goal is for academic achievement and if parents are concerned that there might be some political message woven into this then our goal is to stay on the academic track as opposed to the political track,” he said.

The speech will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at 9 a.m. Las Vegas time Tuesday.

News of Obama’s speech was met with criticism this week from some Republicans who accused the president of using the opportunity to promote a political agenda and overstepping the boundaries of federal involvement in schools.

The White House said the text of the speech will be posted online Monday so parents and educators can review the content before Obama addresses students. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday the speech would address high dropout rates, among other issues.

"I think we've reached a little bit of the silly season when the president of the United States can't tell kids in school to study hard and stay in school," Gibbs told reporters in Washington Friday morning. "I think both political parties agree that the dropout rate is something that threatens our long-term economic success."

Gibbs said former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush delivered similar speeches to students. He said Obama's speech would give children "a little encouragement as they start the school year."

Local parents had mixed feelings.

“We’ve had calls both ways, in terms of parents saying they would prefer their children not view the message and others who are saying they would like their children to, of course, see the message,” Deputy Superintendant of Instruction Lauren Kohut-Rost said.

Donna Schlemmer, who has volunteered with the local Democratic Party, said she supports the president and is glad he will tell her third-grade daughter the importance of staying in school.

“I don’t understand what all the ruckus is about,” she said. “Why turn it into a political thing? It’s not. It’s just talking to the kids about education and how important it is.”

Other parents have concerns about giving politicians access to their children.

“We have no problem with the president encouraging kids to do their best. Presidents have done that forever,” said Clark County GOP volunteer Joseph Tatner, who also has kids in the Clark County School District. “But there is a lot of concern because of the way this president has handled certain public events in the past. There is some concern about what he might say and what the real motive is behind it.”

A letter from the superintendant was sent to parents through the district’s ParentLink online system telling them to contact their child’s school if they didn’t want their student seeing the speech.

Kohut-Rost said many teachers might not show the speech because it doesn’t fit with their curriculum. Teachers are required to plan their lessons a week in advance, she said.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to shift an entire lesson plan and that’s why we’re saying (to teachers) if there’s a connection to what it is you’re teaching and it fits in then that option is available to teachers,” she said. “Furthermore, the option is available to parents of whether or not they want them to be viewing the message.”

Ruffles said the school district didn’t receive much advanced warning about the speech, and except for media reports, he doesn’t know what the president plans to say.

“I guess I wish there had been some opportunity for input because I think had school districts been asked through some kind of electronic means we might have had the opportunity to shed some light on what would fit better than what happened to occur,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Education has prepared some suggested activities for students to participate in before and after the speech, all of which are posted online.

“We’ve seen significant changes in those lesson plans over the last 48 hours,” Ruffles said, “so I suspect that there’s been some revisions that have occurred because of these concerns expressed by citizens throughout the country.”