IMPERIAL, Pa. (AP) — Parents say students at a Pennsylvania school were asked personal questions that opened them up to ridicule during what was supposed to be an anti-bullying workshop.
School officials defended the superintendent after eighth-grade students at West Allegheny Middle School in Imperial were asked last week to step into a circle and answer questions including whether they were gay, what their religion was and about their family’s financial status.
School board president Debbie Mirich says the board supports Superintendent Jerri Lynn Lippert, district administrators and teachers.
Lippert says the “Kindness Workshop” was created after bullying reports with good intentions but had unintended consequences.
Parents said at meetings this week that students were also asked about the education levels of family members, drug and alcohol usage and household marital status.
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OMG, no one could possibly seen how this could go wrong… Your family is really poor, aren’t they Johnny, is your Dad still in jail? Jane, you dress like a tomboy, are you maybe gay? Now everyone, let’s have empathy for them.
Forcing Lil’ Tommy to show everyone his hemorrhoid probably took things too far.
(Heavy Sigh).
I applaud their intentions and the fact they are willing to address the bullying problems nearly all schools face. However, I have to wonder how they went about developing this program. I can tell you as a middle-aged gay man that there would be very little chance I would have answered honestly when I was that young. Sexuality is deeply personal and is best discussed in the abstract – as is religion. Same for most of the other topics, I’m betting.
I really do want to thank the administrative staff for realizing the need for these programs, but I hope they are learning from this misstep how better to approach it. Kudos to the school district, but, please take some good notes here and improve the program going forward. Also, you might want to consider discussing this one-on-one with the students negatively affected.
Isn’t that wonderful? Next week, let’s ask the faculty and school board the same questions and see how they like it.
“I am a Muslim. Sometimes I’m depressed. I worry about bad things happening in the future.”
Ten minutes later: