Wood River High and Bellevue Elementary schools delayed showing President Barack Obama's nationwide speech to students Tuesday morning, opting instead to give parents the opportunity to decide whether their children should watch.
The speech was shown live at the other six schools in the Blaine County School District. It will be shown this morning at the high school and Bellevue Elementary.
District Board Clerk Laurie Kaufman said Tuesday afternoon that a recommendation from Tom Luna, Idaho superintendent of public instruction, came too late last week for the district to distribute permission slips. Luna's memo to principals and school districts, recommending that parents be given a choice, was released late last Thursday afternoon. Friday was an in-service day in the district and school was not held.
"We decided to show it," Kaufman said. "There was no time for permission slips to go out. Decisions had to be made rather quickly."
Nonetheless, Kaufman said, schools honored any requests from parents who didn't want their students to view the speech. Information was not available on how many parents kept their children from watching.
The speech lasted about 20 minutes and was made by Obama from Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. News media reports stated that the speech was nonpolitical and that the president exhorted America's students to study hard, set goals and accept personal responsibility for their studies.
Wood River High Principal John Blackman said he decided to delay showing the speech after he received more than a dozen complaints from parents on Friday.
"I just wanted to allow parents to make the call regarding their students," Blackman said Tuesday. "We recorded it and we'll show it student-wide tomorrow. I just didn't feel like I had enough communications yet from parents."
Parents who decline to let their students watch were instructed to notify the high school by e-mail. Blackman said those students will be given an alternative activity when the speech is shown.
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
