The curriculum can be found at: http://www.mikemcmahon.info/.

Bullying across the board is wrong – I will never tolerate bullying in my home or from my kids at school. This training begins at home from parents.

I am concerned, however, that the GLBT community is receiving special protection against bullying (more than for race, obesity, awkwardness, red hair, bad breath – whatever)and that children who are raised with religious values that do not embrace the homosexual lifestyle will then be targeted for abuse. REGARDLESS of the abuse source, it should be addressed. A new curriculum teaching children that any lifestyle choice is open for them to choose, is NOT the answer to the bullying issue. It is simply a way to indoctrinate unassuming children and families.

Is it the actual presence of two-mom and two-dad families in your children’s school community and in the PTA? Is it the possibility that your kids might see a “different” family than your own ideal, one that functions as well as your own?

What is wrong with accepting as equals the very real people who are our neighbors, fellow PTA members and class parents? In case you did not know, our Constitution and the Bill of Rights are intended to cover all people equally.

Inclusion and tolerance of minorities, including those of different creeds, nationalities, and orientations, is a matter of civil rights and demographics, not proselytizing or making one class of parents and students ‘superior.” I certainly applied anti-bullying and anti-harassment standards equally to all of the 40 kindergartners in my care at Franklin School when I was a volunteer, but not all of those kids had learned tolerance and mutual respect equally well. Our kids need better ways to learn to get along with each other, especially those who (even in K-1) were abusive of others with words or their bodies.

The supplemental curriculum for inclusion and anti-bullying teaches mutual respect, not sex, and it brings the AUSD into line with existing state laws that protect everyone’s civil rights, including the right to practice one’s religion.

If you think that the Board of Education and AUSD officials are ‘thinking backwards,” remember: if the AUSD FAILS to adopt adequate and equal protection for all students against bullying and verbal abuse, and a student is physically harmed or traumatized by bullying based on a perceived or real difference (sexual orientation, race, creed, etc.), the district could lose millions of dollars in a lawsuit, just like Morgan Hill and Vallejo districts already have. This could ruin our already perilous school finances. These “backwards” officials have a legal responsibility to the district to prevent such unnecessary legal exposure.

Do you really want only SOME kids and SOME families to be included in classroom discussions, and only SOME kids (yours?) protected from bullying?

I hope you feel otherwise, but your words seem to say that protecting your own children from harm is good, but that you are unwilling to protect every child from serious physical and emotional harm. I pray that is not what you intended, but it looks that way…

Are you afraid that your kids will be “bullied” because they look or act or believe something different from what their peers believe?

this poll really upset me. it definitely felt anti-gay….

Parents have a right to protect their children from what they deem inappropriate, by any means necessary. That means taking their children OUT of school and home schooling them, or eliminating the source of the problem.