Respect for the Office

Our Governor, Jack Markell, will be visiting some schools this year. He has asked for the opportunity to address students during school and talk to the faculty after school. He'll visit one of our most improved schools, W.T.Chipman this month. We will show him some Spartan hospitality and welcome him with all of the courtesy and respect that is due the office of Governor of the First State.

It will be a great opportunity for a first hand lesson in government and certainly opens the door for some interesting classroom assignments afterword. It doesn't matter if you are a republican or a democrat or if you voted for him or not, he's everyone's Governor right now and he has a very challenging job.

Would we offer the same respect if the President of the United States wanted to visit one of our schools? Sure we would.

As it so happens, President Obama is planning a visit to schools on Tuesday at noon via the Internet and CSPAN. Like George Bush did in 1991 he wants to launch the school year by addressing the nation's school children. And, like the opposing party in 1991, there are those who say the president is using this speech for political gain.

According to the press release, the speech will take no more than 20 minutes and "the president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning". It seems to me that those are goals that all of us can support. If, because the words come from the President, they stick with a few students like never before, that would be a good thing.

So, it has been a little surprising that we've had some parents contact us even before we knew of the speech and threaten to keep their children home. We have also had some parents ask if we are going to view it, can they come and view it with their children.

Here's how we'll handle what has become a somewhat controversial issue. At Central Elementary and W.T.Chipman, students who return a permission form will have the opportunity to view the speech live. At Lake Forest High School, they plan to download and save the speech to be used in individual Social Studies classes. One of the reasons they chose that option is that they're trying to reduce the number of school wide-interuptions to the day and they already have a pep-rally scheduled for next week. Sorry, Mr. President, football season is about to start.

We're not sure if students in our elementary K-3 schools will understand what the President has to say, so teachers in those schools will wait to review the message before determining if there is a usable lesson that is applicable to our social studies curriculum.

So that's the plan. We'll use discretion and we'll allow parents to choose whether their child should view the speech live. And we'll allow teachers to determine after it is delivered, if the material is appropriate for a social studies lesson.

Harry Truman said, "When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency."

I'd like to think that if the President called, President Obama or any future president, and wanted to speak at one of our schools, we would show him the same courtesy and respect we do for our Governor. It's not so much the person, but the Office that would deserve it.