The state Attorney General's Office said miscommunication and an "overzealous" delivery led one of its staffers to sprinkle references to al-Qaeda, child pornography, and serial killers into a talk with nine- and ten-year-olds in a Lower Merion school this week.Rico says it's another classic oops...
Shirley Clifford learned about the assembly at Merion Elementary School when her fifth-grade daughter crawled into the backseat of her van. "She got in the car and was like: 'Do you know there's a website to look up murderers?'" Clifford said. Her daughter, referring to the state Megan's Law sex-offender database (photo), knew the results could be tailored by neighborhood. "I was a little surprised. It's ideally not something I'd introduce that way," the mother of three said.
A school district spokesman said the content of the talk, which included a joke about being kidnapped by al-Qaeda and a "homework" assignment to search the sex-offender database for nearby molesters, was unsettling to some of the approximately 170 children in attendance. "We've heard from parents that students came home and they were scared, that some of the messaging was scary to them," said Doug Young, spokesman for the Lower Merion School District.
Teachers didn't wait after the first assembly to see whether the presenter planned to use the same content in a second session for six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds. They raised concerns, and the second presentation was tweaked to be more appropriate, hitting on "stranger danger", not Megan's Law, Young said.
The Attorney General's Office acknowledged the presenter crossed a line, but said it had never before received a complaint about the program, Operation Safe Surf. About 43,000 people, mostly students, have learned about safe internet use through the program since Attorney General Kathleen Kane took office in January of 2013, spokesman Joe Peters said. He declined to name the employee who made the presentation at Merion. But he said the man conducts outreach and education full time, and often speaks to students. Peters said he didn't know whether the man had used the same examples with students before.
According to an email to parents from Principal Anne Heffron before school let out, the man also told the group it's illegal for children or adults to take pictures of children with no clothes on, and questioned how they know someone they're playing video games with isn't a serial killer.
The district decided to put a hold on similar programs scheduled at its other elementary schools. Young said that after administrators talked with the Attorney General's Office, he expected those sessions would be held. He said topics like cyber-bullying and sexting were important for students to discuss, adding that previous Operation Safe Surf sessions for high school students and parents, including one this month at Harriton High School, had been well-received.
Peters attributed the misstep in part to a breakdown in communication in the Attorney General's Office, because an employee who worked over the summer to tailor the "delivery" of Merion Elementary's program recently left the position. "Some places, they like you to be very interactive and dynamic," he said. "Other places like you to be more lecture-style." He added, though, that schools don't need to request that comments like the ones made at Merion be omitted and called the session "an aberration, a glitch". He said the employee would continue to speak to students. The man had the right intentions, Peters said, such as encouraging dialogue between parents and students when he talked about the sex-offender registry. "Again, wrong choice of words," he said. "Wrong delivery. But the well-intended message was: sit with your parents, talk about these issues, and, families, be aware."
Cindy Ridgeway, co-president of the Merion Elementary Home and School Association and mother of a fifth grader, said her son Jake wasn't concerned by anything he heard. She said the family talked regularly about internet safety. Because the principal sent an email to parents before students got home, which Ridgeway said she appreciated, she was able to approach Jake right away. "Luckily," she said, "my son took everything in stride and said he learned a lot from it."
27 September 2013
Over-zealous? In the least
Tricia L. Nadolny has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about another well-meaning idiot:
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