By Diane Petryk
MIFFLINBURG -- President Barack Obama’s plan to deliver a back-to-school speech at noon Tuesday, to be televised to the nation’s children at their schools, has some conservatives jumping.
Superintendents of schools in Mifflinburg, Lewisburg and Line Mountain confirmed Saturday they have had parents calling and e-mailing to object to the possibility of their children hearing the president’s speech. Other Valley superintendents could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Mifflinburg Superintendent Barry Tomasetti said Saturday morning each parent was called and given the option of deciding whether their children will view the speech, which the school will record to show at a later time.
“If the president wanted to do it correctly,” he said, “he would do it at nighttime so parents could sit with their children and discuss it.”
A moment later, he said, “I mean effectively.”
Debra Dock, who has children in ninth and 12th grade in Mifflinburg, said she was surprised last week to get a paper the school sent home asking if she objected to her children hearing the president’s speech. She said she and her husband, Kevin, were made aware that the paper would be sent home by a recorded phone message from Tomasetti.
“I believe in freedom of speech, and I certainly believe our children should be allowed to hear their president,” she said. “Whether or not you agree with the president ..., he’s still our president. If he has something to say to our country’s children, I think they should hear it.
“What kind of example are we setting by censoring our own president?”
In Lewisburg, Superintendent Mark DiRocco, also contacted Saturday, said he is “putting the matter in the hands of our professional educators.”
They may show it live or delayed and some may have sent notes home notes about it, he said. He said he fielded a few calls, perhaps five or six, and three or four e-mails, from those concerned about playing the speech live “and some from parents who think we should be showing it.”
Of the latter opinion is Duane Griffin, who has a daughter at Lewisburg Area High School and a son in the middle school.
“There has not been a U.S. president that I would not have been thrilled to have my kids hear talk at school,” he said. “It’s an absurd thing to get upset about. ... And it doesn’t give your kids any credit to think they would not be able to listen to someone and think for themselves,” he said.
But protests grew all the same Saturday. A press release from the Constitution Party, sent from Lancaster, suggested parents should keep their children home from school Tuesday.
And to fill the time: “We encourage instruction on the Constitution of the United States and the role of each branch of government,” said Constitution Party National Committee Chairman Jim Clymer.
To Griffin, that sounds like “ 'Keep ’em home the UFOs are coming’ wackiness.”
The White House agreed. Spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Friday: “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 said former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush delivered similar messages to school children.
Bush, in 1991, encouraged kids to work hard and abstain from drugs.
Gibbs said he couldn’t explain the reaction of some school districts.
“Look, there are some districts that won’t let you read Huckleberry Finn,” he said.
Obama is scheduled to deliver his speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.
Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement last week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to indoctrinate children with socialist ideology.
The text of the speech has not yet been released. Gibbs said it would be put on the Internet Monday so parents can see it in advance.
But Oklahoma State Sen. Steve Russell apparently knew enough about it in advance to say the speech “is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”
In Line Mountain, Superintendent David Campbell, who also got some calls concerning the matter, said a taped version of the speech would be shown — and only in social studies classes.
“It’s a political time,” he said. “I don’t even want to get quoted on this one.”
But he agreed with Griffin that there seems to be a failure to give students credit for being thinking individuals.
“And then we wonder why they can’t express themselves in a proper way,” Campbell said.
He said he hopes the students will view the speech in small groups where they can give their opinions and where they will be safe and respected.
“It’s all related to race,” Griffin said. “The scared people are being manipulated by people who benefit by their attitudes.
“So far they’ve called Obama a socialist, a fascist, a Nazi and a Muslim. He can’t be all four.”
