In two and a half weeks, the 2011 graduates at DY will be recognized and honored in this year’s Senior Last Assembly.
I cannot express in profound enough terms my hope that the administrators at DYHS will have prepared their staff for appropriate behavior at this event. There should be NO anti-war protests, no fatigues worn by staff members, no disrespectful displays of shunning our graduates such as happened last year.
The district has finally adopted a policy prohibiting political bias by public employees, so one might hope this would discourage staff from violating such a basic premise – but one would have thought common sense would have taken precedence last year; however, this was not the case.
I would go so far as to suggest that Marybeth Verani and Adeline Koscher should be summarily dismissed from the event. For that matter, they should be required to stay home WITHOUT PAY for the day for their blatant and disgusting display of disrespect and selfish promotion of personal political bias at last year’s Senior Last Assembly. They proved without question then that they have no ability to formulate decisions based on sound judgment. Let’s not leave it up to chance to learn whether or not they know better this year.
This is an occasion of recognition for the graduating students – NOT an avenue for teachers or staff members to hijack the event and abuse their positions of authority to promote their own political agendas.
Do I dare to hope that the leadership in this district would, might, could, will do the right thing? Will they actually do what is right for the students?
Time will tell.
DY Voice of Reason 
You’re Right Again Susan!!! This is a time for celebrating and recognizing the students’ accomplishments. If students have been taught well then they have become educated learners and therefore able to make informed choices wherever their path may lead them. They should all be commended as individuals for what they have achieved and not part of someone’s political agenda. The district seems to have many policies… I only hope this one is followed.
I’d like to think that educators can learn from past experiences. There’s certainly no shortage of irony if they prove their inability to do so.
You are ignorant. You have know actual knowledge behind their actions. To protest their beliefs in a school assembly may have not been the best decision but it is not illegal. They were trying to protect their students- what teacher wants to see their students hand their lives over to a NEVER ENDING war..? I’m glad they spoke up. Freedom of speech is our first amendment, how come you can cyber-bully people as you please but whenever someone in this country tries to promote PEACE a WAR breaks out against them? And the message they are trying to get through to the kids is, war isn’t the way to solve things as it never has been. Do you think the military guards or whom ever really cares about those students?.. They are doing their job, they’re expressing themselves and caring for their students enough to risk their jobs. So your opinion isn’t only ignorant but it is in valid, unnecessary and wrong. This is what makes America look bad because not only are you abusing the first amendment by putting down your own people, but you are doing it for the wrong reasons. Power to the people doesn’t mean everyone for themselves. And hey, when your son or daughter wants to get in listed in a war that America has no desire to end, I hope its still legal for someone (less ignorant than their mother hopefully) to explain to them what the war is really like.
P.s Your blog post don’t make you anymore patriotic than the next ignorant, low-life asshole 🙂
First and foremost, I don’t need to have “knowledge behind their actions” (whatever that means). I only need to know that it is illegal for them to make political statements while on public school premises and while being paid as public servants. There is case law from the United States Supreme Court which makes it patently clear that government employees are precluded from taking political stances while performing their duties as government employees, i.e., public school teachers (See Garcetti v. Ceballos and Mayer v. Monroe County Community School).
It is not a teacher’s job to impose their political positions on their students, all in the name of “protecting their students”. You are young and naive, and for that I will give you some leeway. I am no proponent of war. You are narrow-minded and ignorant in your one-sided perspective. My position is supported by the United States Supreme Court (again see Garcetti v. Ceballos and Mayer v. Monroe County Community School). I am a patriot and I love our country. I have relatives who have committed their lives to serving this great country and protecting our right to freedom of speech. These two teachers are entitled to the same freedom, but they must limit it to their own time, not while serving as a government employee. They may “burn their bras” on Saturday, on their own time and while not on public property. For them to abuse their trusted positions of influence and authority with students by espousing their own narrow-minded beliefs is to take advantage of their positions. The very fact that you were so influenced by one of these teachers that you have adopted this strong, albeit naive position, is proof positive that they have disused their position. Their job is not to perform Antonio Gramsci’s “long march through the institutions” (ask your beloved history teacher if she’s familiar with that particular communist war strategy of cultural hegemony and I will guarantee that she not only is familiar with it, but likely became a teacher to act on it). Your idea that these teachers “risked their jobs” is absurd. Their jobs were never, not for one moment, at risk. They are tenured teachers in the strongest union in our nation, protected beyond reach no matter what wrong they do. You needn’t worry your pretty little head about the risk of them losing their jobs, dear.
If, per chance, your teacher was the English teacher rather than the History teacher, I’m afraid I would take issue with her competence, given your pathetically poor spelling and grammar. Perhaps she should have spent a little more time actually teaching the subject. If, however, your allegiance is to Verani, than I am likewise saddened by the disservice done to you. The piece to which you have chosen to comment was posted more than three years ago. This leads me to believe that this idiot teacher is either telling her students about it or you are the one resourceful, informed, aware student who attends DY – and frankly, from what you have written, I just don’t buy that. The post and my blog are somewhat ancient history, so one would guess that someone is making it known to students – perhaps using it to further her inane political position under the guise of a “teachable moment”. There is much more to the history of this country than what one misguided, single-minded teacher has chosen to share. You do not know the whole story. You have no concept of the First Amendment and you certainly do not understand civil rights in our great country. It is my child’s right to receive an education free from political bias and indoctrination into an extreme political platform (be it left or right) of select teachers. For a teacher to use her position of authority and influence to further her own political opinions is an abuse. It is academic rape.
You have chosen to publish a comment to a public blog post, in a juvenile attempt to “give me what-for” and have, instead, shown your naivete and ignorance. For that I feel sorry for you. I’m sorry that you don’t know better and that you aren’t able to more adequately and competently defend your position (which is indefensible, by the way). I’m sorry that the best you can do is name-call and make baseless threats (I have violated absolutely no internet blog terms or conditions and there is absolutely nothing published in either of my blogs which would equate to grounds for it to be shut down). I do not “put down my own people”. I honor and respect the citizens who have earned it and I am happy to shine a light on those who are creeping around like rats in the dark, feeding off of the minds of our youth.
The best I can offer you is that you go out into the real world, live your life, enjoy the freedoms our brave, selfless soldiers have fought to protect and learn that just because one tiny, little teacher who has vowed to indoctrinate her students into positions of liberalism does not reality make. Learn about Antonio Gramsci’s “Long March Through the Institutions”. It will shine a whole new light on what Marybeth Verani and Adeline Koscher are espousing – ILLEGALLY – in their classrooms.
You commented on a post which was published one year AFTER the event which perpetrated it. Read the article I posted which addressed the issue specifically and then tell me there isn’t truth and value in what I said. If you came home from school every day telling your parents that you had a teacher you trusted telling you that there is no God (if your family happens to be spiritual/religious) or that your trusted teacher was openly advocating Judaism (if your family was Christian) or encouraging students to support the Ku Klux Klan, your parents would be incensed beyond comprehension. To further a specific political position is NO different, young lady. And I stand firmly by the tenet upon which public education in this country was built – that every child is entitled to earn an education in a neutral environment, free from discrimination. These two teachers profoundly discriminated against six students who made an informed and conscious choice to enlist (not “in list”) to serve our great nation. I know some of their parents and would be happy to pass along that one of these idiot teachers is educating her students to believe that they, as parents, are ignorant and somehow care less for their own children than Marybeth Verani or Adeline Koscher! I’m sure they will be very appreciative of your view.
You took the time to attempt to articulate your opinion in your comment. I wonder if you will bother to take the time to read the original post about the incident and the following post which evidences the United States Supreme Court’s position supporting my position. A really good teacher would encourage you to do your due diligence and LEARN the truth of both sides before just regurgitating some notion put into your head by someone else with their own agenda.
http://susanstuff.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/well-go-figure-i-got-our-high-school-on-the-news/
http://susanstuff.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/freedom-of-speech-for-teachers-is-not-protected-in-the-classroom/
I have no agenda of my own, my dear. My child was not one of the children who these two teachers publicly shunned. My child wasn’t even a graduating senior that year. My child is informed, intelligent and capable of forming his own opinions. My agenda was purely right versus wrong. I refused to sit back and allow my silence to condone the horrendous wrongs done by these two teachers. If you have the courage to read the blog posts, be sure to read the comments as well. Unlike you, my interaction with the public (and my blog went viral, reaching all around the globe – the picture my son took appeared on the front page of a Belgian newspaper and the story was covered in the Canadian Free Press and on national news) was always respectful, intelligent, fact-based and reasonable.
I will leave you with a very wise quote: Be strong in what you stand for, and careful what you fall for. It is grammatically incorrect, but the sentiment is valuable and something you might spend some time evaluating about yourself. For you have fallen for some baseless propaganda, I’m afraid, and you are sadly indignant about a position you can’t even defend articulately.
Oh yeah, and take this blog post off the internet before I report it and your website is deleted.
Thanks xoxo
(A proud former student of one of the teachers)
This warrants no reasonable response. You are sadly ill-informed.