Sample letter for parents to send to your child's school,if you decide to announce in advance that you will be removing your child on the Day of Silence.
This is quite tactfully worded. You may choose to give the school an even stronger message---that you think homosexuality should never have a voice in a responsible school setting, and can only foment dissent and confusion in the learning environment.
Dear (school official):
Due to the administration’s decision to allow the politicization of the learning environment through the Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the highly partisan Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, we feel compelled to call our child/children out of school on that day.
The administration errs when it allows the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The protesters have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom. How many political protests will the school allow, and who decides which political issue will be permitted to disrupt the educational process?
Day of Silence participants have a First Amendment right to wear t-shirts, put up posters, and set up tables on which they make available informative materials. The Day of Silence participants go further, however, by exploiting the instructional time of every student in every class for an entire day in the service of their philosophical beliefs and partisan political purposes. Their silence, and in some cases, the silence of their teachers, transform the activities of the day.
By allowing students to remain silent, administrations fail to protect the classroom from intrusive, political exploitation. My child/children will not be part of this political appropriation of the classroom.
Sincerely,
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