
I was just about to leave for work when I got this email.
"Dear (name of school redacted) Parents,
We have gotten several calls in regards to what we are doing with President Obama's speech today.
We do not have plans to show this live today. Our plans are to tape the speech and use where appropriate in our classes later.
I've copied the speech below in case you would like to read it."
I called the ex, we talked for a few minutes, then I called the school. I got a secretary first, who garbled some words for a few moments, then put me on with the Principal. He could not tell me when or if they would show it to the kids, basically avoided saying anything about it being shown. He then told me that he only learned about this on Friday so they didn't have time to include it in their lesson plans, at which point I had enough and took control of the conversation. I first went off at some length about the "we didn't know about this until Friday". I asked him if he watched TV, read any newspapers, or ever went online. Everyone else in the country has known about it for a couple of weeks, I said that on purpose, I'm mean that way. His reply was "it was early last week". Yeah, this is the person who is the Principal at WSPA-2's school contradicting himself.
I told him that his behavior was appalling, un-american, and that he should be ashamed of himself.
WSPA-3's Principal (at an elementary school) had a totally different attitude. "We are not showing it today because it happens right in the middle of recess and lunch". We will show it in it's entirety tomorrow. We will be sending a note home tonight in case anyone wants to keep their kids out of it. She apologized for having to do that and she was the one who brought up how silly that is.
I am still waiting to hear from the Superintendent of WSPA-1's school. The secretary said "we don't show anything that isn't part of the curriculum."
I do want to share my favorite quote on this whole thing.
“Seriously, why don’t we want the president of the United States, any president of the United States, delivering the message to kids: work hard, stay in school, succeed. Get your ratings if you want, you’re just screwing your political party.” - Joe Scarborough (that commie socialist)