The following letter is reprinted from The Phyllis Schlafly Report, January 1985.
To: School Board President
Dear|
I am the parent of who attends School. Under U.S. legislation and court decisions, parents have the primary responsibility for their children’s education, and pupils have certain rights which the schools may not deny. Parents have the right to assure that their children’s beliefs and moral values are not undermined by the schools. Pupils have the right to have and to hold their values and moral standards without direct or indirect manipulation by the schools through curricula, textbooks, audio-visual materials, or supplementary assignments.
Accordingly, I hereby request that my child be involved in NO school activities or materials listed below unless I have first reviewed all the relevant materials and have given my written consent for their use:
Psychological and psychiatric examinations, tests, or surveys that are designed to elicit information about attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings of an individual or group;
Psychological and psychiatric treatment that is designed to affect behavioral, emotional, or attitudinal characteristics of an individual or group;
Values clarification, use of moral dilemmas, discussion of religious or moral standards, role-playing or open-ended discussions of situations involving moral issues, and survival games including life/death decision exercises;
Death education, including abortion, euthanasia, suicide, use of violence, and discussions of death and dying;
Curricula pertaining to alcohol and drugs;
Instruction in nuclear war, nuclear policy, and nuclear classroom games;
Anti-nationalistic, one-world government or globalism curricula;
Discussion and testing on inter-personal relationships; discussions of attitudes toward parents and parenting;
Education in human sexuality, including premarital sex, extra-marital sex, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, group sex and marriages, prostitution, incest, masturbation, bestiality, divorce, population control, and roles of males and females; sex behavior and attitudes of student and family;
Pornography and any materials containing profanity and/or sexual explicitness;
Guided fantasy techniques, hypnotic techniques; imagery and suggestology;
Organic evolution, including the idea that man has developed from previous or lower types of living things;
Discussions of witchcraft and the occult, the supernatural, and Eastern mysticism;
Political affiliations and beliefs of student and family; personal religious beliefs and practices;
Mental and psychological problems and self-incriminating behavior potentially embarrassing to the student or family;
Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the child has family relationships;
Legally recognized privileged and analagous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers;
Income, including the student’s role in family activities and finances;
Non-academic personality tests; questionnaires on personal and family life and attitudes;
Autobiography assignments; log books, diaries, and personal journals;
Contrived incidents for self-revelation; sensitivity training, group encounter sessions, talk-ins, magic circle techniques, self-evaluation and auto-criticism; strategies designed for self-disclosure (e.g., zig-zag);
Sociograms; sociodrama; psychodrama; blindfold walks; isolation techniques.
The purpose of this letter is to preserve my child’s rights under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (the Hatch Amendment) to the General Education Provisions Act, and under its regulations as published in the Federal Register of Sept. 6, 1984, which became effective Nov. 12, 1984. These regulations provide a procedure for filing complaints first at the local level, and then with the U.S. Department of Education. If a voluntary remedy fails, federal funds can be withdrawn from those in violation of the law. I respectfully ask you to send me a substantive response to this letter attaching a copy of your policy statement on procedures for parental permission requirements, to notify all my child’s teachers, and to keep a copy of this letter in my child’s permanent file. Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely, |
Copy to School Principal
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Written by the Maryland Coalition of Concerned Parents on Privacy Rights in Public Schools and distributed by Phyllis Schlafly and Eagle Forum.
