Sensitive Topics

In our school system, if a parent doesn’t want their child to receive information about human sexuality, they can exercise the parental right to shield their child from learning. I’m not a fan of this, because I think we’d all be better off if we had a comprehensive sex education curriculum that was for all children, k-12.

But the fact remains that we allow parents to have a say about this because it is deemed to be a sensitive issue.

Right now we have people (none of them teachers, I might add) suggesting that the way to make schools safer is to arm teachers with guns.

Okay, now I want to exercise my parental rights to protect my child from being in a school where teachers have guns. Surely guns in schools are a sensitive topic. Surely I will get to have my say, right?

My child is guaranteed public education. And I expect that to be in a school without guns. Where do I need to sign up to make sure her right to a gun-free education is protected? Under no circumstances do I want adults who should be role models promoting a “pro-gun lifestyle”. Not for one moment do I want her to think that spreading around more guns is a solution to any problem.

What do I need to say? It’s against my religion? It’s against all my deeply-held values? It flies in the face of what education is all about?

Send me the special permission slip. I want to sign off on this now. My child deserves an education without guns.