The president has a right to visit schools, but should not have that right if the visit is as a candidate.  Mr.Kerry has the right to visit schhols as a senator, but should not have that right if his visit is as a candidate.
    KCSHYGUY should answer you question, since you posed it to him.  But I would like to go back a few years and ask you a question.  How would you have felt if Clinton (the democratic incumbent at that time), in 1996 while running against senator Dole, had visited a school in such a fashion as president Bush II did?  Your outrage should cut both ways, as should that of KCSHYGUY.

I am not sure the link I pulled the following info from would have worked for the board here, but I copied it from the site.  This was posted on the Kansas City Star newspaper website last Thursday.  I didn't think to go there for information first, but this has a bit more info I wasn't aware of, stuff that wasn't in my original link.  If anyone would like the actual link, let me know.

Quoted from the Kansas City Star website.

Posted on Thu, Sep. 09, 2004

Board will hear from Bush rally objectors

By MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS The Kansas City Star

Some Lee's Summit residents upset that Republicans were allowed to hold a Bush campaign rally at a public high school will take their objections up with the school board tonight.

The meeting was requested in a letter sent to the school district Wednesday.

President Bush and several other Republican politicians spoke at Lee's Summit High School on Tuesday morning. The by-ticket-only event was attended by 15,000 people; 2,000 were students and school staff. Only students with parental permission could opt out of attending. Nine chose not to go.

In the letter, residents complained that a partisan rally “should not have been held in a facility that was paid for and is maintained by taxpayers' dollars during student instruction time.”

Jane Gibler, author of the letter, said hundreds of residents have signed the letter objecting to the rally for a variety of reasons.

Board president Patti Buie and Superintendent Tony Stansberry defended the district, saying they felt that having a president speak at the high school posed a once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunity.

Residents want the board to apologize for the partisan nature of the event and for any offense it caused. The letter also asks “that in the nature of fairness,” the board invite the Democratic Party and John Kerry to use the high school for a similar event, and to consider a policy against holding any other political campaign events during the school day in the future.

The board will hear from residents at 7 p.m. today, but no decision will be made on the issue at that meeting, Buie said.

END OF ARTICLE.

I wasn't aware that this was basically a mandatory event for the students, and that only parental permission would be accepted as reason for not attending.  I can vouch for the estimated faculty & student attendance (being a former student there), since the school does have around 2,000 students (9th through 12th grades).

I would agree that seeing the President in person (whoever he is) is not a common everyday occurrence, so to a degree, I'm not surprised only 9 students bypassed the opportunity.  I wonder how many students would've bypassed it if they would've known beforehand it was going to be just a partisan political campaign rally.  In that case, students shouldn't be FORCED to listen to him, especially those who object to his policies or what he stands for.  I can't say whether the school informed the students ahead of time what the purpose of the President's visit was, but it looks to me like the school may not have given full disclosure of his visit.  Again, it would be different if the President was there to discuss relevant issues, such as education, instead of asking for votes.  A school is not the place to do that.

One poster made a good followup point:  Shrub really wasn't there as "President"; he was there as a "Presidential candidate".

I didn't know the full scope of the protest until I read this article.  I'm a lot more outraged now than I was before.



-- Modified on 9/14/2004 5:53:25 PM