Military sensitivity sought in schools
Reminder to aid kids with deployed parents
http://www.bangornews.com/editorialnews/article.cfm?ID=286565&CFID=6851039&CFTOKEN=55874651
Commissioner of Education J. Duke Albanese said Monday he plans to send e-mails to schools reminding them to be "sensitive" to children whose parents may be involved in the war on Iraq.Albanese said Maj. Gen. Joseph Tinkham, state adjutant general, told him Monday that the Army National Guard had received complaints from parents across the state who felt "people weren't as sensitive as they should be."
When he first heard about the complaints last week, he had been under the impression that parents were upset about teachers making anti-war statements in the classroom, Albanese said.
In fact, according to "anecdotal stories" told to him by Tinkham, the commissioner said only one complaint had to do with a classroom activity in which a child became upset after a teaching assistant "took up the anti-war" side.
Other complaints were from parents on two occasions who thought local school personnel "should have been more sensitive" when a student requested to leave early for a military-related activity and when a student was teased on a school bus because a parent was in the military.
The anecdotes were reported at family assistance centers, where relatives of deployed soldiers can get information and support.
Albanese said late Monday afternoon he would send out an advisory "reiterating the need to be sensitive to the times and to the children who might have a parent who's going to be potentially dispatched to war."
Maine teachers and schools have an "excellent track record" when it comes to supporting families, Albanese said.
"Often teachers act as surrogates ... in support of a child who's concerned about what's happening at home," he said.
Army National Guard spokesman Maj. Peter Rogers said late Monday he was pleased with the department's move.
"That's great news," he said. "I think a lot of it was probably that people weren't thinking and hopefully this will fix the problem," he said. "A lot of teachers may not have known children had parents who were deployed."
As of Friday, his department had received "no phone calls, e-mails or faxes," Albanese said. "Usually parents would come to us and let us know their concerns."
On Monday four e-mails arrived from people who had seen a television report that Maine Army National Guard officials were getting complaints from parents.
"That's not what we consider a huge response to the problem," Albanese said. "That's really minimal."
The e-mails "were about [people] wanting and encouraging us and me in particular to do something about this."
Rogers is hopeful things will be worked out.
"All we're looking for is for educators to be sensitive to the fact that we have family members in the classrooms and these kids have already suffered the trauma of having someone from their family deployed," he said.
"Everyone has the right to free speech, but if it's making kids uneasy and their separation harder, it's not something we're interested in at all."