Mich. Mom Demands District Review Parental Opt-Out Policies
by Jim Brown
March 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - A woman in Michigan has asked the district where her teenage daughter attends school to exempt the child from all reading assignments that contain obscenity, immorality, and other troubling themes. Now the Christian mom is upset because she feels her teenager is being made to suffer academically and emotionally for a decision that every parent is legally entitled to make.Vanessa Thrasher is upset that Southfield Public School officials are requiring her 15-year-old daughter, Katherine, to read controversial books such as Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston and Black Boy by Richard Wright -- books that contain objectionable elements such as profanity, sexual content, and denigrating depictions of Christians.
Thrasher wants her daughter to be given alternate reading material in her sophomore honors literature and composition class. The mother says she was told by superintendent Beverley Geltner that teachers are not obligated to answer questions about reading content, and that parents have no say regarding the literature used in the classroom.
The Michigan parent says she was also told by the superintendent if she did not like the curriculum, she should find another school for her child. She was livid that district officials felt within their rights "to tell me that I have no parental rights to be able to direct and guide the education of my daughter," she says.
"So that's the battle that I'm in right now," Thrasher says. She says Katherine, who had previously been an all-A student "has now, because I have refused to allow her to read these vile books, had to watch as her grade has gone to a D-minus. My daughter's self-esteem has dropped, she's just really depressed, doesn't like school, and her whole attitude has changed. And I'm just really in a battle."
Superintendent Geltner was not available for comment. But Thrasher feels the school district definitely has some answering to do -- especially since the parent contends that, under the so-called "Hatch Amendment," children are not required to be involved in school activities that their parents have not reviewed or to which their parents have not consented.
"To me this policy is just useless if you don't have the right to opt the child out without the child being penalized as my child is being penalized," the Michigan mother says. "So I've asked the Board if they would review this policy and amend it accordingly to give parents the rights the State has given as well as the [rights] federal government has given."
Thrasher contends that both U.S. congressional legislation and federal court decisions affirm that parents have primary responsibility for their children's education. However, she says policies allowing moms and dads to opt their children out of certain required assignments are meaningless if the child is penalized for the parents' exercise of their legal prerogatives.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
