Penny Hodgins's Album: Wall Photos

Photo 1,680 of 2,701 in Wall Photos

02/02/2017-
An update on the Union letter which erroneously made its way into my sons folder-
I spoke with the principal of my sons school this morning, who has been very helpful and supportive since this scenario has unraveled. She did successfully investigate how this happened, was forthright, and has taken action to prevent this from occurring again.

My sons teacher, who is also a lovely woman, is one of three Union teachers at Paige. A Union rep was given these fliers several weeks ago and was instructed to give them to their teachers with clear instruction to hand them to parents at pick up and to open some discussion with those parents. When said Union rep failed to pass these fliers out in a timely manner she went to the school with them at the end of the day, at the very last second, and hurriedly passed these to these teachers with a quick instruction to pass them out to parents. My sons teacher passed the 8-10 copies directly into the students mail boxes, where the children pick up their homework and artwork to bring home at the end of the day. She wasn't told that said material had not been approved by the administration of that school and had no idea the rep failed to inform even the principal of this flier.

My initial shock was with the flier itself, it's negative wording, and how it foolishly ended up in my sons hands. Now my shock is that 7-9 other children had this and not one other parent came forward. Were they not concerned, uninvolved with the material their child brings home, or were they simply unmoved by such a politically motivated document? Perhaps I'm the only parent in my sons class who believes in schools instilling patriotism and unity in our most young and precious minds- conservative and liberal raised children alike.

I am very pleased to say that steps have been taken at Paige Elementary to prevent this from happening in the future. The principal has already implemented a new system for all material being distributed at the school. All material has to be approved by administration before distribution (as has always been the case) and a color coded sticker system will be used to mark all approved material before it leaves the principals office. This system is simple, easy to follow, quick to implement, and it's cheap!

I would like to see Larry Spring [*(518) 370-8100*], the superintendent of Schenectady schools, step forward and address this on a county wide level. Perhaps he should do something to reassure such a simple and inexpensive system is put into place across the entire district. The superintendent, more so than others, has the power to raise awareness to these issues and acknowledges when mistakes have been made. He could even raise enough awareness to reassure that this is prevented on a state wide level, reaching beyond our small district into others as well.

Perhaps 8-10 children aren't many, but one of them was my baby. A statement such as the one made on this particular piece of political propaganda could have seriously altered my six year olds perspective of the world around him. It is my joy as his mother to love my son- It's my responsibility as his mother to make sure he is raised to have manners, scruples, respect, and a strong sense of self before he is exposed to a world that can be difficult to understand, even as an adult. It is the school districts responsibility to reassure that no one steps on my toes while he is in their care.

To all of the parents out there, who found this as appalling as I did, please be vigilant! We quickly trust that schools are teaching our children everything they need to know and nothing more. This was an innocent mistake that lead to no harm. That doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels and assume everyone has only our kids best interest in mind.

It is our God given responsibility as parents to actively participate in our children's education as well. Only you can teach your son or your daughter love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
...And if everyone did, left or right, we would live in a much different world...
God bless

(I pulled this out of my 6 year olds backpack today....the school sent him home with this. In case you can't read what I wrote on this and sent back
'This is shameful- how dare they send material home promoting fear and hate against our president. Don't ever hand my child political material like this ever again!' I expect my child be taught to respect his president and love his country- not begin dividing him against his leader at 6 years old. Fail Schenectady County!)
Added February 1, 2019

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