Ask any school teacher, and they will have a story to tell about the most difficult or outright ridiculous parents that they had to deal with.
Handling a complaint from a parent is always a difficult task because a school can’t be perceived as being rude or offensive to them.
While there are definitely cases in which the complaints from the parents are well-meaning and out of genuine concern, others are downright deplorable and illogical. Recently, an elementary school in St. Louis had to deal with a complaint that was solidly in the second category.
The complaint stemmed from a Facebook post that one of the parents posted on a page called the “Concerned Parents of the Rockwood School District”. This mother seemed outraged that the school decided to read a book titled “Ron’s Big Mission” for second graders.
The problem was that there was absolutely no problem with the book. The book in question was based a real life story that astronaut Ron McNair experienced as a young child in the 1950s. The book shows how 9 year old McNair experienced racism in a local library.
According to the book, a local librarian refused to lend him a book because McNair was a “colored”. Rather than complying to this obviously racist refusal, McNair kept requesting that he be lent the book. The librarian consequently called the police, who persuaded her to lend McNair the book.
Although the parent who posted the Facebook post did not give specific reasons, it is difficult to imagine her issue with the book had something to do with the subject of race. After all, the book is about how a 9 year old boy brought a change to a segregation policy in a local community.
After the online complaint became known among other parents, they spoke up and defended the book and its moral lessons. After considering both sides of the argument, the school decided they would one-up the situation by scheduling an online read-out-loud of the book.
Pond Elementary School Principal Carlos Diaz-Grandos led the reading, and shared why he thinks McNair’s story is so important for everyone in these times.
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Replaced!