Village students to watch president's speech

As the Herald went to press on Tuesday, Rockville Centre public school students in grades 3 through 12 were scheduled to watch President Obama’s back-to-school speech.

District officials planned to show the speech in the auditorium, cafeteria and library of South Side High School, where students with time off could stop by to watch it. A brief assembly was planned for South Side Middle School students, and in the district’s elementary schools, the noontime speech coincided with lunch, and it was to be recorded so students in grades 3 to 5 could watch it toward the end of the day.

“If, as some people are saying, the president is attempting to indoctrinate our children, and if by definition indoctrination means that we are asking our children to stay in school and attempt to learn at the best of their abilities and continue their education, then I wholeheartedly agree that we should indoctrinate our children,” said Board of Education President Mark Masin. “Why doesn’t everybody believe this?”

The district did receive a couple of phone calls before the Labor Day weekend from outraged residents — some of whom do not have children in the schools — and from parents who did not want their children to watch the speech, and promised to pull them out of school. One caller complained that he did not want his child watching “the president’s propaganda,” and said he would not wait to read the transcript of the speech, released over the weekend, because he had already made up his mind. But no calls were received on Tuesday, the first day of school.